ESPRO - BLOOM Pour Over Coffee Brewing Kit - Durable Brushed Stainless Steel, Dual Filter with Patented Micro-Filter & 50 Paper Filters

I got this pourover cone because I was intrigued by the ability to brew without filters. It could be a penny saver, and a space saver, and I would never be up a creek without a coffee filter, because I don't need one.The pros:-You don't need a paper filter-Comes with a few paper filters (or at least mine did)-You don't need to worry about cracking or shattering ceramic or plastic-It looks cool-You can make tasty coffee-Coarser grind can reach paper filter speeds without a paper filter (although the flavor profiles will change with different grind settings)-You don't have to use the ESPRO proprietary paper filters if you don't want to *(More on this below)The cons:-Slow brew time with the same grind without paper filters (Around 7-8 minutes for 20g coffee grounds at setting 34 on 1Zpresso JX-Pro, whereas with paper filter it's 3 minutes or less)-Cleanup without paper filter (Can't just throw away the grounds; you'll need to rinse and maybe knock out some grounds from the metal filter bed holes with a brush; I used my bean grinder brush, but you might not have that if you just buy grounds or if you have an electric grinder with bellows or something, and thus would need to figure out how to clean the ESPRO)-Proprietary filters are expensive**I tried out a few possible other filters which would be cheaper than the ESPRO filters. I didn't see anything about this online, so maybe I'm sharing information that is new. I tried out Melitta #2 cone paper filters, Melitta 8-12 cup basket coffee filters, and 51mm portafilter espresso paper filters. The espresso paper filters just block up the bottom of the cone and don't even let water through. However, both the cone and the basket filters work pretty well. The cone filters don't reach the bottom of the ESPRO, so if you pour way too much water too fast, you might break a hole in the bottom of the paper cone filter if you don't position it right. The basket filters aren't quite as tall as official ESPRO bloom filters, so you have to be careful not to overfill your pourover, lest the grounds float up and around the paper filter, making your paper filter only a little bit effective, and requiring you to do more cleanup afterwards. In terms of use, the original filters will work the best, but these other options are there as well.

Immediately noticeable improvement over my cheaper metal pour over filter that I've been using for a while. Works great without paper filters, it makes a clean full bodied cup.I chose this specific one because it is less finicky than some of the others, you don't need to get fancy with exactly how you pour the water for it to make a great cup of coffee.

Perfect size and hole count for pourover grind spec. If they made a *snowpeak style titanium version that nested into common titanium mugs I'd pack it bikepacking or UL fastpacking. So simple, easy to clean, no hot touch silicone lip and the peep hole to sight the liquid fill level if you're not premeasuring the water. The grind fill lines are accurate if you aren't premeasuring the coffee. I just wish it would have an option to not send the included useless filters. Thats the whole point. No waste, no papery taste.

The rubber "hold ring" around the top is a good idea, but mine came loose the first few times I used it. Otherwise, for a pour over, this is awesome, makes absolutely great coffee (assuming of course you have good coffee and an appropriate grind setting for a pour over).

Edit: This is discontinued and ostensibly they'll stop selling the proprietary filters.I was initially underwhelmed with this but I tweaked grinds a bit and it does perform. Grind finer than you think you need and it works best. Not sure about without the filter but I'm still working on a good grind for that. Overall when compared to my CCD and AP and the overhyped Pulsar this thing makes great coffee. Good body, great flavor, good richness despite short contact time. This works. And the filters are fine to separate. Pull them off from the outside!Bonus: Melitta number 2 filters work great in this with a few folds.

This product is very interesting. For me, coffee is not really an infusion. Coffee is mostly a colloidal suspension: microscopic insoluble solid particles dispersed in a liquid. I think that’s why we like expresso and Moka pot coffee so much. They are bold, they have body and texture, they have character because of these solid particles floating in the liquid. Remove these particles, and you get an insipid character-less liquid. By now, you should know that coffee, for me, is unfiltered coffee, the rest I call it brown water or tea.The real deal with this brewer is not using paper filter. If you use paper filter you don’t get all the solid particles that make coffee coffee. For best results grind your own coffee with a burr grinder. I also combine/compound the ESPRO BLOOM with the OXO INFUSER in tandem, one on top of the other, in order to get the right size of solid particles in the suspension (dual sifting?). The final result is great, somewhere in the ballpark of a Moka pot, perhaps better, but faster and in larger volumes. I usually do 13-14gr of coffee for 200-225 cm3 of water. It’s also easier to clean than the Moka pot (which I still love).In the meantime everybody is complaining about their filters … just don’t use them. There is no point to it unless you want to drink brown water.

I love a good pour over and this is the perfect solution. Not only can you use regular cone filters instead of the expensive pour over filters with this, it does one cup at a time easily and efficiently. I love how it doesn’t take up much space and it’s very easy to clean.

Apparently I used a too fine of a grind the first time or two and some grounds got stuck in the holes. I've not been able to get all of those cleaned out and several attempts. So that is frustrating. Also, I can't use this for just brewing me a cup of coffee. I drink small cups of coffee and this don't work properly for that. You need a fair amount of grounds (I forget the exact amount they recommend). It does work good enough though when I'm brewing for me and my wife. I'm going to stick with AeroPress and my disposable pour over Vietnamese pour over bags.