There’s a reason why pour-over is the brewing method of choice in many upscale coffee shops: It’s a basic way to make freshly brewed coffee on demand. And pour-over coffee reveals flavors and aromas that you can’t get from mass-brewed batches stored in thermal jugs.
When using freshly roasted beans at home, a handheld dripper is a great tool to get the most out of your brewing ritual. After brewing a few hundred cups, we found the Kalita Wave 185 dripper to be both consistent and straightforward to utilize.
And we highly recommend getting a good grinder, kettle, and scale to complete your setup (though they’re not necessary). These tools will go a long way toward making a really great cup of coffee on a regular basis.
Our choice
Thanks to its flat bottom, this dripper ensures reliable and even extraction, as well as exceptionally tasty coffee.
The Kalita Wave 185 Dripper produced consistent, flavorful, balanced cups of coffee while also being one of the most technically forgiving. This is in part due to its flat bottom, which promotes more even water drainage, making it easier—even for beginners—to achieve consistent results. The Wave 185 is available in glass, ceramic, or stainless steel. The downside: The proprietary pleated filters are a bit more high-priced than Melitta’s basic wedge-shaped filters, and while they’re usually available from online retailers, they’re tough to find in local stores.
Runner-up
This dripper should appeal to pour-over experts, as you need to pay close attention to the pace and purpose of your pour. In our tests, it produced some of the best brews.
If you want a dripper that captures the ritualistic allure of drip coffee even further, we recommend the Hario V-60 Coffee Dripper (size 02). Once you’ve mastered the technique, you can have a lot of fun adjusting the spiral brew to the wide, tapered shape of this dripper. The V-60 is capable of brewing coffee that’s just as flavorful, compelling, and well-rounded as the coffee brewed with our top pick. With the Hario V-60, all it takes is a little more practice and focus to get consistently great results. And slight adjustments to the brewing parameters will have a more noticeable effect on the coffee (which can be a good thing if you’re into tinkering). Like the Kalita Wave, the Hario V-60 uses proprietary filters, but they’re widely available in specialty coffee shops and online.
Also great
This drip coffee maker uses low-cost filters you can buy at grocery stores, so it’s perfect for beginners who value convenience over learning how to brew drip coffee.
If you want a dripper that uses filters that you can buy in almost any supermarket, we recommend the Kalita 102 Ceramic Dripper. In our tests, of the many productive drippers that utilize wedge filters (in this case, the Melitta #2), we found this ceramic model to be the most pleasant to utilize, with good weight and balance. It makes a slightly less intricate coffee than our other picks, but it’s the most convenient option for beginners who just want a basic way to brew a cup.
Also great
The vessel is not only practical, but also pretty. You can brew several cups of coffee in it at once. We managed to prepare a delicious, lively brew in it, which our testers really liked.
We also love the Chemex Six Cup Classic series. It’s a good choice for those who want to brew several cups at once, as well as for fans of great design. (The Chemex was invented by chemist Peter Schlumbohm in 1941 and is in the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art permanent collection.) It has a built-in carafe, and in our tests, the Chemex reliably produced balanced, nuanced coffee while being fairly forgiving of our pouring technique. Like most of our other choices, the Chemex uses proprietary filters that aren’t typically available in grocery stores. But they’re straightforward enough to find online or at upscale coffee shops.
