Coffee filter paper in the end to choose bleached or unbleached? How to use coffee filter paper

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Which filter to choose for hand-brewed coffee: comparison of filter paper, metal filter mesh and filter cloth

Coffee filter paper is only a small ingredient in a good cup of coffee, but if you like to use a filter that requires filter paper to make coffee, do you want to buy bleached or unbleached coffee? How to avoid the smell of paper in the coffee? Or is there any reason to worry besides the smell of paper? Just look down and see.

Description: kalita wave

Cooking with Kalita Wave filter cup and bleached filter paper

The Origin of filter Paper use

Before filter paper was invented in the 20th century, people used filter cloth to filter coffee. At that time, Melitta Bentz, an East German housewife who liked coffee, was tired of cleaning coffee grounds from the filter cloth, and she thought there must be an easier way to filter coffee.

After trying many different materials and methods, she finally decided to try her son's blotting paper. She cut the blotter down to the metal filter cup, put in the coffee powder and filled it with water. After confirming that there was no residue in the coffee liquid, she applied for a patent.

Then, on July 8, 1908, coffee filter paper was officially patented, and Melitta Bentz was founded in December of the same year.

Nowadays, coffee lovers like to use different ways to make coffee with filter paper, although some people still use filter cloth or metal filter to brew coffee, most people still choose bleached or unbleached filter paper.

But what kind of filter paper is better?

Description: chemex

Use Chemex with unbleached filter paper

Basic style: bleached filter paper

The main difference between bleached and unbleached filter paper is whether it is bleached, bleached with a small amount of chlorine, or bleached with oxygen.

Although the safety of chlorine bleached filter paper was questioned in the 1980s, it has now been proved to be safe in brewing coffee. In addition, bleaching filter paper will not add extra flavor to your coffee when making coffee.

However, bleaching filter paper is still controversial about its environmental impact. In fact, the 2012 Journal of Environmental Engineering and Management published that the chlorine bleaching process in the factory will have a great impact on the environment; on the contrary, oxygen bleaching has a lower impact on the environment, and all major filter paper brands indicate the method of bleaching filter paper on the packaging.

Description: coffee filter

Bleached filter paper for use on the shelf

Basic style: unbleached filter paper

Unbleached filter paper does not have a bright white appearance like bleached filter paper, but it is slightly better for the environment in the manufacturing process, because unbleached filter paper does not require so much programming.

Most of the filter paper we see is unbleached, and the natural paper is brown (after all, trees are the raw materials), but unfortunately, if you use unbleached filter paper when making coffee without first soaking it with hot water, you are likely to drink the smell of paper in your coffee.

In other words, you may drink the flavor of the unbleached filter paper, depending on the quality of the filter paper. But no matter what brand or how the filter paper is made, it is right to wet the filter paper before brewing.

Description: filter coffee

Use unbleached filter paper to make coffee

How to remove the smell of paper?

Wetting filter paper can remove the unpleasant smell of paper from coffee and preheat the cooking utensils as follows:

1. Place filter paper on the cooking utensils

two。 Soak the filter paper with hot water (make sure there are no missing areas)

3. Pour out the hot water. Don't boil it with this water.

4. You can wet it again if necessary.

5. Start making coffee.

Most filter paper should be used once, but some may need to be washed twice (especially if you are sensitive to the smell of the paper). But if you still smell paper twice, you'd better change the brand.

Description: coffee filter

Wet the filter paper with hot water before cooking

Quality and thickness of filter paper

Although we have compared the difference between bleached and unbleached filter paper above, this is not the only difference. The quality of the filter paper can also affect the flavor of the coffee and the good brewing water, even the smallest difference can be felt in the cup.

The most important part, we must choose the appropriate filter paper size to match the cooking method, and pay attention to the thickness of the filter paper. If the filter paper is too thin, the water will penetrate too quickly, and the thicker the filter paper will retain more coffee oil when brewing. If you are looking for thick filter paper, you may have to pay a more expensive amount, but fortunately, it is not much different.

Description: filter coffee

Cooking with Chemex and bleached filter paper

So what kind of filter paper is better?

For the choice of bleached or unbleached filter paper, the most important consideration is the flavor of coffee? Or the impact on the environment.

If you want to contribute to the environment, you can buy unbleached filter paper and wet it before use; on the other hand, if you are worried about the smell of coffee, you can wet the filter paper twice or use bleached filter paper (oxygen bleached filter paper is recommended).

Also remember that the quality of filter paper is also very important, cheap unbleached filter paper will make coffee paper taste obvious, if you care about paper taste very much, you can use better quality unbleached filter paper.

Written by Brendan Nemeth.

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