How Do These Two Coffee Maker Designs Differ?

The Hario V60 and the Chemex are both pour-over coffee makers, but they extract coffee in different ways. The V60 uses a 60-degree cone angle and spiral ribs, giving the brewer fine control over flow rate and flavor. The Chemex pairs a glass body with thicker filters, producing a cleaner, more transparent cup with less effort.

The V60 was designed around adjustable variables: cone angle, a large outlet hole, and spiral ribs that let grounds expand. That setup rewards a medium-fine grind and steady pouring, yielding a bright, crisp result. The Chemex, a classic coffee maker with 74 years of history, instead favors simplicity and a mellow, balanced cup that beginners can manage.

In the world of specialty coffee, the Hario V60 and Chemex are two highly representative pour-over brewing devices. Although both fall under the drip category, their design philosophies and extraction logic are vastly different. With its 60-degree cone angle and spiral rib structure, the V60 gives brewers an enormous amount of control, making it ideal for veterans who pursue flavor complexity. The Chemex, on the other hand, draws inspiration from laboratory glassware and pairs with thicker filters, allowing even beginners to easily achieve a clean, transparent cup. This article will break down the differences between these two classic devices in detail—from their construction and extraction variables to flavor tendencies—and include concise brewing recommendations to help you choose based on your own needs. Whether you prefer bright and crisp or mellow and balanced, you'll find direction here.

CHEMEX Brewing Is Actually Not That Complicated—Let's Talk About Common Misconceptions Regarding This Coffee Maker

This time I'd like to sort through the two most mainstream pour-over devices right now, the Hario V60 and the Chemex—what exactly sets them apart, and what kind of brewing approach suits each of them.

Let's start with the principle of filter extraction:

Hario V60

The V60 dripper was born from its inventor's vision of fusing chemical experimentation, glass craftsmanship, and coffee brewing into one. Its name comes from the 60-degree cone angle, and successive generations of the product have used materials including ceramic, glass, plastic, and metal. The final version chose a copper dripper, aiming to leverage copper's high thermal conductivity to keep temperatures more stable during extraction, thereby enhancing coffee performance.

The V60's design reserves multiple adjustable variables for the brewer, mainly centered on the following three points:

1. 60-degree cone angle: This angle makes the path of water traveling through the coffee bed and converging toward the center longer.

2. Large-diameter outlet hole: The flow rate can be altered through the pace of pouring, thereby influencing the final flavor direction.

3. Spiral rib pattern: Air can escape upward from all around, creating conditions for the coffee grounds to fully expand.

Recommendation: The V60 drains relatively fast, so a medium-fine grind is recommended. Don't be too rigid about pouring technique—the key is to stay consistent. Flavor profile: bright, clean, crisp.

Chemex

The Chemex Coffeemaker classic coffee maker has elegant, flowing lines and has been around for 74 years.

This maker is based on the heat-resistant, corrosion-resistant glass flasks used in chemistry labs, and the entire brewing process never contacts plastic, resulting in a clearer, cleaner cup. The Chemex's shape is like a combination of an Erlenmeyer flask and a funnel, minimizing unstable factors in the pour-over process and fully showcasing the ultimate flavors of specialty coffee—even beginners can brew a delicious cup.

Because Chemex filters are 20% to 30% thicker than standard ones, and unlike Japanese-style drippers there are no numerous degassing ribs on the wall, air can only flow through a single groove on the front side, so higher resistance and slower flow rate are normal. Of course, the thick, high-quality filter paper is precisely one of the Chemex's core advantages—it makes the brewed coffee taste cleaner.

Recommendation: The Chemex's extraction method is actually somewhere between pourover and immersion. The reason American coffee shops favor it is precisely because this characteristic means the Chemex doesn't require highly advanced technique—you can operate it foolproof. So with the Chemex, you can bloom, but there's no need to pulse-pour—just pour all the water in one go.

The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.