Coffee

There are a lot of v60 options out there and a lot of opinions that can boil down to some pretty nuanced preferences. In my book the very best v60 will always be the v60 03 Switch. It’s an absolute workhorse brewer that can give you a standard delicious v60 pour over or the next morning a totally different perspective on the same beans with an immersion brew. The real fun of specialty coffee brewing is experimentation though, and that’s where the Switch shines as hybrid brewing options with the Switch are matched perhaps only by the plethora of tweaks you can make with the Aeropress. If you were to only have one pour over brewer – this would be my recommendation. But… I can’t in good conscience recommend having only one pour over brewer.
It’s too often discounted as a novelty, but the Suiren (water lily) v60 is more than a display piece. I don’t think we should overlook the appearance though.

Looks: The most popular and lauded v60 is the simple plastic version, but I’m going to go ahead and say that IMO, it’s kinda ugly. Having that thing out on your countertop might signal to specialty coffee geeks that you are serious about coffee, but to most it just looks like a cheap plastic piece of junk. The Suiren is visually enticing, it’s eye-catching, customizable (you can replace the tabs with different colors – but I’m partial to the stock black and white), and just plain sparks joy. I love boring guests by going on about specialty coffee in the hopes I might find an occasional convert. People are much more likely to ask questions about your Suiren than any other v60 on your shelf.

Taste: I’m probably not winning many people over here talking about looks though. The Suiren has a bit of a reputation of sacrificing taste for appearance and that’s what I want to address here. I disagree with this notion outright. One of the biggest criticisms I’ve heard is that the open architecture allows excessive heat dispersion and that this cooler brewing temp results in a more “mellow” cup. I don’t want mellow. I want flavor in my coffee, and lots of it. Personally, I haven’t noticed a difference in the taste between this, a plastic v60, or my glass v60. Heat retention in brewers is complicated as material around your wet filter can both insulate and conduct heat away. I wanted to see some hard data on what the Suiren was doing from a temperature perspective.

Here’s my experimental design:

1. Pour 150ml of 210F water as a preheat into each brewer (Cafec Abaca filter) and measure cup temp.
2. Empty cup and pour a second 150ml 210F flush through brewer. Measure cup temp.
3. Brew 300ml (20g) pulsed (Tetsu 4:6 recipe) med fine grind immediately after above prep. Measure coffee temp in cup.

Results: Glass v60: Cold Wash – 166F , Hot Wash – 183F, Coffee – 164F

Suiren: Cold Wash – 173F, Hot Wash – 184F, Coffee – 163F

This confirmed my suspicion – despite the Suiren having an open design, at least compared to a preheated glass v60, it’s not losing any more heat. In fact, if you didn’t do an adequate pre-rinse, the Suiren appears to be more forgiving in that sense. I’m guessing an enclosed plastic v60 would produce higher numbers across the board, but I hope this at least convinces you that the Suiren should not be singled out as a massive heat dissipater due to its open appearance.
The other criticism of the Suiren is that it’s a “maximum bypass brewer” v60s in general are higher bypass, but I’m skeptical about this claim as well. Open doesn’t necessarily mean it’s leaking a lot more fluid around the bed. The channels on a traditional closed v60 allow for capillary action and can actually pull fluid away from the paper. Suiren has less surface contact and may actually not have as much bypass. I unfortunately do not have a refractometer, but others have reported refractometer readings for the Suiren, and they are not significantly different. I do not buy the high bypass argument, and I’d like to think I’d be able to taste the difference if there was a bypass differential and I just do not.

Cost: It comes in at twice the cost of a plastic v60, but right on par with metal, ceramic, and glass versions. It’s not a premium.

Cleanup: It’s the easiest v60 to clean. There’s very little coffee-soaked surface area. If there was a brewer you could get away with not even washing/rinsing – this would be it. I give it a quick hot rinse; there’s been no discoloration of my white fins, and zero issue with flavor retention. You can toss the whole thing in the dishwasher fully assembled or break it down into components if you prefer for the most thorough cleaning.

Travel: Easily the most portable v60. Quickly disassembles into fins and base. They are durable and you can break it down into a nearly 2-dimensional form that can fit just about anywhere. You could probably carry this thing in your pocket if you wanted. Also, it’s super lightweight. Easy win in this category.

Toxicity: Ugh. This section is a flamebait setup, but I want to preempt these types of comments with my take. It’s a very popular movement right now to avoid any contact with plastics in the brewing process. There is growing and difficult to deny data that microplastics are toxic/neurotoxic. I have not seen any convincing data to imply that high quality food safe plastics are contributing to this though. Regardless, the contact area on this is pretty minimal – that’s the whole point, it suspends the filter with as little material as possible.

In Sum: It's an awesome brewer and a beautiful piece of gear. If you already have a v60, should you add this to your collection? That’s a tough call – use the info above to inform your decision. Trying to decide which v60 to get? I’d still start with the Switch, but if you find yourself brewing a lot of cups that you want to keep fast and simple and you are not always using hybrid methods, the quick, lightweight, easy cleanup justifies this as a second v60 worth having.

Tried the Suiren? What are your thoughts?

TLDR; The Hario Suiren is more than a piece of kitsch. It’s a legitimate brewer with some real advantages. It brews an excellent cup on par with other v60 brewers and deserves more attention.