“Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union.” It’s a heady thought, spoken by Frank Lloyd Wright, but more than my brain can process early in the morning. Because my day does not get started without the perfect cup of coffee, made just the way I like it, and enjoyed at home and not in a paper cup on the run. And while this made-in-Florence $5,900 beauty would certainly produce a beautiful cuppa, and Taylor Swift swears by the ease of Nespresso’s $300 CitiZ pod machine, I’ve discovered an alternative that makes the perfect brew for not much more than a tin of designer coffee beans.
Meet the Hario V60 dripper, a porcelain filter invented in the land of design perfection: Japan. The conical dripper looks like it has been around forever, but it is just three years older than the iPhone. It was created by Hario, a Tokyo firm founded in 1921 as a scientific instruments manufacturer, before shifting into kitchenware. In 2014, they introduced the ceramic cone dripper that revolutionized third wave coffee culture.
Hario Hario V60 Ceramic Coffee Dripper Pour Over Cone Coffee Maker Size 02, White
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Great design puts the onus on the designer, not the user. In the case of the Hario V60, the cone looks simple—but a team of chemists and industrial designers collaborated to create a caffeine icon. They designed the cone with a 60-degree angle, which allows hot water to evenly flow over coffee grounds placed inside a paper filter. The coffee drips through the center hole at the bottom, and there is one more subtle, but revolutionary, detail: curved internal ridges that enhance airflow. The result is the perfect pour-over coffee that could easily set you back $5 at a gourmet coffee shop.
While the V60 comes in a range of colors, it’s the white and the red that are most classic, and typically available in the U.S. And as for that porcelain, it’s made in Arita, Japan, using a 400-year-old technique known as Arita yaki, in which crushed porcelain stone powder is fired at a temperature higher than porcelain, so the finished product is hard as a rock.
I know that’s a lot to absorb before you’ve had your morning coffee. So get the kettle going and start pouring.
Ingrid Abramovitch, the Executive Editor at ELLE Decor, writes about design, architecture, renovation, and lifestyle, and is the author of several books on design including Restoring a House in the City.
