Category: Accessories

Much like a fine dining experience, if you are looking to tickle your taste buds and really taste your coffee (and we mean really taste your coffee), then don’t look any further than the Hario v60.

The Hario v60 is easy to use, reliable, and inexpensive way to make pour-over coffee. It’s also one of the most popular and recognizable pour-over drippers on the market. Available in plastic, ceramic, glass, and metal variations, and with a few color options. We stock the v60 pour over kit in red, size 02 as well as a range of smaller (01 – perfect for a single cup) and other options but they all work the same, so select a size that fits your needs.

The dripper is a small inverted cone, with a base just wide enough to fit over the top of most mugs. A series of spiraling ribs inside the cone prevent the filter paper from clinging to the side, helping the water flow through the grounds to generate an even coffee flavour extraction.

The bottom of the cone dripper is open for your brewed coffee to drip freely into your mug or pitcher. The dripper has a handle on the side so you can pick it up without scalding any fingers and clean it when you’re finished. And it’s super easy to clean. Bonus.

However what we love about the v60 is that it’s all about great flavour. The v60 creates a clean and ‘bright’ coffee that demonstrates a full range of flavor notes. Trust us, even your favourite coffee will taste more interesting, lighter, more flavourful, once they’ve been given the v60 treatment.

How to use the Hario v60

The v60 allows you to control every variable of the brewing process with absolute precision if that’s what you are looking for. Many v60 geeks use kitchen scales, thermometers, and special kettles for really accurate measurements and to exert maximum control over each step.

But it doesn’t need to be that complicated, so here’s our five simple steps to making a coffee with the v60.

1. Put a filter in the cone and rinse it with hot water.

2. Grind your coffee to a medium-fine grind and put it into the filter. Or, if you don’t have a grinder, out coffees are all available in coarse grind which would be suitable.

3. Place the dripper over your mug or pitcher.

4. Pour hot water (ideally 190-205 degrees Fahrenheit) over the grounds, but only just enough to get them wet. The recommended coffee-to-water ratio is one or two tablespoons per six ounces of water. However there’s no need to be this scientific – use your eyes, watch the levels of coffee coming through into the decanter and you’ll still get a great result.

5. Once the beans are soaked, wait about 30 seconds. This process is known as the “bloom.” Once the coffee has bloomed, gradually pour hot water over the grounds but be careful not to let the water overflow out of the dripper.

Where can you get one?

The Hario v60 is an affordable and essential piece coffee maker that is ideal if you are really wanting a great cup of coffee and fancy being a little more exploratory (or scientific!) with flavour.

We’ve got a range of Hario kits and accessories to choose from. If you’re just getting started, the v60 Pour Over Kit is recommended, although the Drip Decanter does look gorgeous on your kitchen table.

Happy brewing folks!

Sttoke reusable cups might just be the most beautiful reusable mugs to arrive in the UK. Ever.

The Sttoke reusable cup has some really gorgeous features, not least because it’s made out of a shatterproof German-engineered Greblon Ceramic which is scratch- and temperature-resistant. In your hand it feels like a proper cup. Goodbye flimsy plastic reusables, hello swanky ceramic coffee cup. It’s where sustainability and design meet to do good things together.

Sttoke claims that their mugs will keep your drink hot for up to three hours and we have put this to the test – filling up first thing in the morning, and still being able to sip hot coffee at lunchtime. The hardest part? Pleasure delaying the drinking of your coffee for that long. Seriously. All in the name of research, right? The ceramic coating envelopes a double-wall-insulated stainless steel for optimum heat retention. This construction means your Sttoke will maintain its design beauty through your everyday wear and tear.

The “spill-proof,” BPA-free plastic lid is well constructed with a sliding open/close valve for drinking. Far and away the best “drinking spout” on a reusable cup, and easy peasy to open and close.

The mug fits very well in our hands due to its ergonomic design, and its lightweight materials make it easy to carry, even when full.

The Sttoke mugs were also named a Gold Winner at the Good Design Awards, and it is easy to see why when you take a look at the stunning list of colors they’re available in.

Mhor Coffee is currently stocking three of these colours in the 8oz format: Coral Sunset (which we tested and it absolutely looked the business sitting pretty on our desk), Luxe Black which is it’s classic cousin, and Angel White which glistens gorgeously in the sunlight.

Fast Company has a nice interview with Aerobie AeroPress inventor, Alan Adler, covering his background briefly as well as some of the back story behind the development of the Aeropress. This is the coffee maker that spawned a legion of coffee geeks (including the team at Mhor Coffee). It’s the cheapest and easiest entry into the world of specialty coffee at home.

“In the case of the AeroPress, I was just experimenting with a better way to make a single serving of coffee. This was in 2004. I had a conversation with Pam Abbott [the wife of Aerobie sales manager Don Abbot] and we were both commiserating about how crummy the result of trying to make one cup of coffee in a drip maker is. It just didn’t really come out very good.

So I took up the challenge of making a better single serving of coffee, never thinking for a moment that it would come to be a product. Eventually, I developed some techniques for making a pretty decent cup of coffee in a filter cone–the kind you just put over a cup. But I was troubled that it took about four minutes to pour through. During that time, a lot of bitterness was being extracted from the coffee grounds. And so I wanted to experiment with a much quicker process, and I got the idea of building what became the AeroPress. By applying air pressure, it took the brew time to below a minute.”

Check out the full feature here and if you haven’t yet tried Aeropress, you can purchase them online here.