Sometimes it’s important to take a moment to recognize objects that have served you well. Earlier this week the Hario V60 that I’ve been using to make coffee at home for the last, almost 10 years I guess, slipped out of my hand and cracked. Actually it had slipped out of my hand and cracked several times over the years, but where previous cracks had been mostly visual, this final crack leaked. Before replacing it (with an almost identical replacement) I wanted to give it a small spotlight.
I started seriously making pour over coffee at home everyday back in the Coffee Common days, which long time readers will know was a long time ago. In those days I was surrounded by Coffee Industry professionals so I was hearing about and trying new brewing methods all the time. My fav and standard goto at home was a Chemex (the nice handblown glass model with thick walls, not the thinner mass production one). Even though I had a kitchen cabinet full of different and interesting brewing devices, I most often grabbed the Chemex. It’s just a beautiful thing, and it works. But for travel, that wasn’t happening. I pack light and no way I’m trying to fit that in a suitcase, so I deferred to the Hario V60. It’s a similar style/method and takes up far less space.
And I should be clear, no slight to the V60 at all, the Chemex was just more of an all-in-one kind of thing and looked nice on the kitchen table. I know some people have various gripes about how the V60 brews coffee, I’m not one of them. I love it, and that’s the thing that matters most.
I had a plastic V60 that I was traveling with and when we moved to Japan one of the first things I bought there was a white ceramic 02 sized dripper. Japanese kitchens are small so the cabinet/counter space comes at a premium, and so the Chemex went into storage and the V60 became the daily device. I remember the first time it fell off the counter in Tokyo and I panicked, only to pick it up and after looking closely fine no damage. A few weeks later I started to see a small brown hairline develop as the coffee I was pouring each day found it’s way into a tiny little crack along one side. I was surprised, but also impressed?
That would happen a few more times over the years, a small crack here, a chip there, but nothing ever complicated the brewing process. The coffee stain cracks almost becoming a kind of kintsugi. I brought it from Japan to Canada and it’s been putting in the work almost daily, until this week. This new crack was serious. When pouring in the water, coffee started running out of the side onto the scale. No good. Of course now that I type it maybe I should have looked up a local artisan skilled in kintsugi and had them take a crack at this. But I’m not that patient, so I ordered a new one.
At one point the little coffee shop near my office in Shibuya did a collab with Hario and made black V60s. Dear reader, you know I exercised incredible restraint in not buying it at that time. But it was pricey, and I had the perfectly good white one at home, so I didn’t. But I’ve often thought of it so rather than just getting the standard white again, this time I decided to go with red.
Will this choice and this object last me another 10 years? I suspect so, but I’ll keep you posted one way or the other. I ripped off the seal and christened it this morning with it’s first beans, and it performed deliciously.