Kettles and Water

Put the Gooseneck Kettle on for Pour-Over Perfection

For some, it's rather Zen, taking the time and attention to brew a perfect pour-over coffee. Be it with the Chemex system or the V60 from Japan; filtered coffees take practice and attention to detail. The key element is controlling water flow over the ground coffee to extract the perfect flavour and aroma.

Enter the gooseneck kettle, allowing for precision pouring. Your standard kitchen kettle is fine for making tea, but it's just not compatible for the accuracy and control of water flow needed for pour-over coffee. The gooseneck design is nothing new; copper kettles from the 1800s featured the elegant spout.

At Espressotec, we carry both stove-top and electric Hario Buono kettles from Japan. With its distinctive beehive shape, Hario kettles are made of stainless steel and feature the slender gooseneck spout. Hario kettles are loved by professional baristas and home coffee makers alike.

Companion to the Hario Buono kettle is the Hario V60 brewer, named for the V-shaped brewer at a 60-degree angle. Which leads us to a frequently asked question; should the water be a particular temperature for pour-over brewing? You may have noticed that some roasters recommend the desired water temperature right on the bag of coffee beans. In general, you should aim for 205 degrees or about 30 seconds off the boil. The rule of thumb is a higher temperature for light roasts and a lower temperature for dark roasts.

Then there's the question of hard and soft water - hard water has higher levels of dissolved minerals, mostly calcium and magnesium, and that will affect the taste of your coffee. In Vancouver, our water is consistently soft, with no real need for filtering. As you move north and east across the province, water tends to be much harder. From a simple Brita filter to installing a filter system to your home water line, there's a wide range of hard water filtering systems.

Unsure if your water is hard or soft, here's the best list we've discovered on water hardness levels throughout B.C. Water hardness levels by city

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