Rinse Your Coffee Filter to Remove Paper Taste

You may not realize it, but the paper filters we use when brewing coffee in a drip-brewer or coffee dripper have a taste. A pretty disgusting taste, actually… like chewing on newspaper. Paper filters have soluble solids in them which are extracted during the brew process and this papery taste makes it into your cup. We’re so used to the taste that we don’t even notice it in our coffee anymore. But, if this filter taste was removed, we would notice the lack of paper taste in our brew, and we could get that much closer to attaining the perfect cup of coffee.

This can be done very easily! The best way, if using a drip-brew machine, is to place your filter in the coffeemaker (don’t add any coffee grounds yet!), add some water to the machine and start the brew cycle. You can use a small amount of water, about half a cup to a cup should do. The goal is to get some very hot water running through the filter to remove the paper taste. Dump the water after it cycles and start brewing your coffee like normal.

If you’re brewing with a manual pour-over dripper such as the Clever Coffee Dripper, just place the paper filter inside the dripper, place the dripper on top of your mug, and in a circular motion, pour water over the filter so that the entire thing gets wet. It doesn’t take much, and the quality of the pour matters much more than the quantity of water used. Cold water doesn’t work very well because the filter’s soluble solids (fibers, etc.), much like ground coffee beans, have a quicker extraction time the hotter the water is (that’s why french press with hot water takes 4 minutes and cold brewing takes 8-12 hours)… so, near-boiling water works best.

I typically use a coffee dripper when making coffee and when I pour hot water onto the filter, I can clearly see that the water that drips into my mug has a yellow tint and tastes very papery! Sometimes I forget to rinse the filter, especially if I’m half asleep… but, when I make a second cup, I taste a big difference when rinsing the filter. Try this for yourself. Make a cup of coffee the usual way. Then, do the rinse and make note of the yellow tint in the water. Take a small sip (gag!) and make note of what you taste. This is what cuppers (professional coffee tasters) do. They taste the good and the bad so they have experience and descriptors to use when saying why a coffee tastes good or bad. I bet if you use this rinsing technique you’ll taste a big difference in your coffee you brew at home.

One last note – in our last blog post, we discussed the importance of preheating your mug for better tasting coffee. This post ties in, as you can actually knock out both rinsing your filter and preheating your mug at the same time in most cases! The rinsed water is what would stay in your mug, keeping it hot, until you’re ready to dump it out and pour in a fresh brew. -Ken

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