Pact Coffee – Zero to V60

V60 – it may sound like a new way of measuring how fast your car can go, but it’s actually a quick and simple method of making great tasting coffee at home or at work. Just a few simple steps, a few small pieces of kit, and some high-quality ground coffee beans are all it takes.

Coffee drippers have been around since the turn of the 20th century, with the first mass-produced dripper launched in Germany in 1908. While the concept may have been around for nearly a hundred years, the V60 is a 21st century take on the idea, launched in Japan in 2005 by Hario.

The V60 gets its name from its shape (side-on, it looks a bit like a V) and the 60-degree angle with which the filter slopes down. It’s a striking little thing, with its clean lines and sharp look, and its size means you won’t need to get rid of half of your kitchen to make room for it.

But what exactly makes a V60 so good, we hear you ask. Well, a number of things – for starters, there’s the shape. The V60 is conical, with spiral ridges inside the filter itself; the importance of this is that it allows the coffee in your filter to drain evenly into your cup, but also allows your ground beans the chance to breathe, so you get a well-rounded flavour from your coffee. The cone shape also ensures that the water stays in contact with the coffee for a long time, which in turn makes your drink tastier. The hole in the base of the V60 is larger than it is in other pour-over designs which allows for a more even flow of coffee into the cup, and then there are the V60’s paper filters, which are super-thin and don’t leave any real aftertaste. The whole system is designed to create a tasty brew with a minimum of fuss – it’s no more tricky than brewing up a cafetiere or slinging some horrible instant coffee into your mug, and allows you to make a great cup of coffee for one or two people without a lot of waste or preparation time.

To use your V60 you won’t actually need much more kit than you would for a cup of instant, and the results from Pact’s specially-selected beans are worlds better. Simply boil your kettle, then leave it to cool off a little. As you wait, place a paper filter in your V60, then place the V60 on top of your favourite mug. Run a bit of water from the kettle through the filter to rinse it, then add a tablespoon of Pact coffee to your filter.

Next – and this is the important bit – pour a little water over the coffee grounds and let them ‘bloom.’ This is the stage where things get interesting, as the grounds will start to bubble as they take on the water, and the aroma of the coffee will start filling the room. Your friends and colleagues may start to gather round at this point – you have our permission to shoo them away. After around 30 seconds, pour through enough water to fill your cup, and that’s it. Don’t stir it, or fiddle with it – it’s done. Great coffee, really easy and really quick. You could say it makes coffee in ‘zero-to-V60,’ but we don’t think that’s necessary.

• Sign up at pactcoffee.com using the code SKINNY14 to get your first bag of coffee for £1
• For full terms and conditions, go to pactcoffee.com/terms