Same Beans, Totally Different Cup: Why Your Brewing Method Changes Everything
Here's something that surprises almost every customer we tell it to: take the exact same bag of coffee — say, our single-origin Colombian from Blend Coffee Roasters — grind it the same way, use the same water, the same ratio, brew it at the same temperature. Just change the brewer. V60 in one hand, Chemex in the other.
They taste different. Noticeably, genuinely different.
How? Why? Let's get into it.
It All Comes Down to the Filter
The single biggest variable between these two brewers isn't the shape, the pour technique, or even the brew time. It's the filter thickness.
The Chemex uses a filter that's 20–30% thicker than a standard V60 filter. That might sound like a minor detail, but it's doing something significant: it's physically blocking more of the coffee's natural oils from passing through into your cup.
Those oils — called diterpenes, specifically cafestol and kahweol — carry a lot of the heavier, richer, more textured qualities in coffee. When the Chemex holds them back, you get something incredibly clean and almost transparent in texture. Bright. Light-bodied. The kind of cup where floral or fruit notes seem to float on top.
The V60 filter lets more of those oils through. So with the same Colombian beans, you'll often find the V60 version feels a little fuller in the mouth — a bit more weight, a bit more body. The sweetness sits differently. It's not better or worse. It's just more of the bean's raw character coming through.
The Shape Has a Say Too
The Chemex's wider, flat-bottomed filter also means the coffee bed sits differently during extraction. Water moves through it more slowly, spending more contact time with the grounds. More contact time generally means more extraction — more compounds pulled from the coffee.
The V60's cone shape naturally accelerates drainage. Faster flow, slightly shorter extraction window. This is partly why V60 recipes often call for finer grinds — to slow things down and compensate.
So the shape isn't just aesthetic. It's actively shaping the flavour.
What This Means for Our Beans
This is why we think carefully about which of our single-origins we feature on each brewer. Our Ethiopian bean — with its natural jasmine and stone fruit character — often sings on the Chemex, where that clean filter lets the florals shine without interference. Nothing muddying the delicate stuff.
Our Colombian tends to feel at home on the V60. Its caramel sweetness and gentle nuttiness benefit from that slightly fuller body the V60 produces. The oils add warmth that suits the flavour profile.
Neither method is 'better'. They're tools. And part of the craft is knowing which tool lets a particular bean say what it wants to say.
Next Time You're In
If you've ever had a V60 and a Chemex side by side with the same coffee, you'll never think of brewing as a neutral act again. It's an interpretation — like how two musicians can play the same song and both be right.
Next time you're at the bar, ask us to talk you through what's on each brewer that day. We love this conversation. It never gets old.