How I killed a hipster and the art of preparing a V60

I am taking a few minutes to communicate to you the sweet satisfaction that fills my heart. With in mind, this somewhat barbaric but still excellent maxim:

“If someone has offended you, do not seek revenge. Sit by the river and soon you will see his corpse pass by.”

You know, in the summer, we see a lot of people passing by. And if we start to be known, and our expertise begins to gain consensus, we regularly see a young barista appear, hipster to the tips of his tattooed fingers, who looks at our work with a condescending look. As if having a good roaster in the region was always an impossible thing, and that the expertise only rested in the hands of a few third-wise roasters, ideally somewhere other than here. I leave it up to you to define the boundaries of here. Still, I was sitting relaxed with my demi-tasse, one good summer morning, when I saw the animal appear. He approaches the counter, asks for a flat white for his friend, and asks if we can make her a vissique-stie. ''No problem!'' replies the barista, who turns to me to ask for a hand because he must have had 25 people in the line behind our man. I then come out of my meditative trance and get up, starting the discussion.

• What do you like to drink? What do you usually drink? Do you work in the café business? Or? (as well as other usual salamalecs)

And that's when I realized that I had before me a monster such as the coffee industry can sometimes, often, create. He knew all the codes, all the fashionable brands, name dropping and knowledge dropping peppered the conversation. And this monster, behind his request, hid a trial of which he alone would be the judge and executioner. Is Brûlerie du Quai a Third Wave roaster?

This scene has already been played to me many times! And it's getting boring because honestly, I don't care a lot about third wave and its codes. Is the coffee good or not? That's my interest.

So I offer him one of my best coffees and I do so.

I grind coffee.

I weigh it. 22g.

I rinse my filter

I put the coffee in the V60

I tap the V60 to get my coffee surface flat.

I set my scale to zero, I manfully grab the swan-spout kettle and with the other hand I start the timer.

And I start pouring the water for the pre-infusion. 3 times the amount of coffee, so I get to 66g

Once there, I grab my spoon, and I do what I consider essential during this type of filter preparation, I lightly stir the ground coffee and the water. I started doing this after brewing hundreds of Chemex, which are more difficult to brew than a V60 because of the smooth surface. If you don't create this turbulence in the pre-infusion, your preparations will never be satisfactory. By doing this, you really allow all the coffee to come into good contact with the water, remove potential air pockets and create a nice mass of coffee in which there will be no channel of shape. So I perfected my technique through numerous preparation and tasting sessions.

I then look up at him, and I see disgust in his eyes. And he said to me:

• You shouldn't stir like that with a spoon, do you often make 'PURROVEUR'?

There, I have a conflict in my head. I have too much work to waste time on someone who has already condemned us. He has his codes, and I have just contravened them. I tell myself that I'm going to make him the best cup of coffee he's ever had. And answer him:

• This is my method, you'll see, it comes out very well.

50 seconds later (my pre-infusion time), I add water up to 360g in circles. Once there, I take my spoon again and stir the contents of the filter. I look at him, he is outraged. It's visible but he doesn't say anything.

At about 1m30, I take the V60, and move it slightly in a circle like you do with a pitcher of milk after frothing it. I do this to increase the movement and turbulence in the filter and ensure that the grind will end up with a nice smooth surface at the end of the preparation. With a chemex this step is essential and you should not hesitate to stir it vigorously.

I then see that I have come to break all the codes of manual preparation dictated by the cult of third wave. A ''PURROVER'', we don't shake it like that! He didn't say that but I imagined it very well. I wondered when he was going to ask me if I had passed my Q grader.

He doesn't say anything but his smirk says it all.

I continued to wait, making small circular movements on my V60 from time to time.

At 3:30, I remove the filter and serve him the cup.

• There you have it, ratio of 1:16, in 3m30s, coffee XYZ, good tasting!

I forgot the coffee I served him but when I want to impress the gallery, I take one of those from our Réserve Selecte collection .

I see him taking a look at the grind, which was perfectly flat. It was a perfect extraction. He then told me that he never stirs the contents of the filter holder, that he creates turbulence thanks to the circle he makes with his kettle. Let it be called the Rao Spin. He has a slightly scandalized tone, as if I had violated the coffee with the spoon.

He goes outside with his cup. I know the coffee was good. But I believe that my method had taken him out of his religious thoughts. I don't know if he liked it because the whirlwind of the business brought me back to my superhero duties.

All this to tell you that I received a video this morning from Scott Rao, a leading authority in the industry, who explains his method for making a V60 filter infusion.

Well, it was a nice surprise to see that his method is exactly similar to mine. I invite you to watch it below. And the episode with my hipster barista came back to my memory with the satisfaction of having won this mental battle and of having arrived, through experimentation, at the same conclusion as one of the best coffee experts in the world. Without being influenced by marketing and a fashion movement. Just me, my cup and its contents.

And this morning, sitting on the edge of the river with my demi-tasse, I saw, somehow, his corpse slowly passing by...

Ah Ah! Hey, hipster!

If you feel like getting started? Here's what you need:(click on the links)

A mill: Manual mill with conical burrs

A kettle: A Hario like in the video!

A scale: Digital scale 0.1g to 2kg

A V60 filter infuser: Made of plastic, it retains heat better!

A carafe: Beautiful Hario carafe, sexy, like in the video

A pack of filters: Unbleached #2 cone filter, don't forget to rinse them

The Hario company also makes a kit with a plastic infuser, a filter kit and a carafe (a little less sexy but which does the job), at a really attractive price. You will still need the other accessories. Perhaps you already have several.

Starter set: V60 plastic + carafe + filters

And write to me if you have any questions. No embarrassment!

Dan