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What techniques do you need to pay attention to when making coffee by hand? Can I inject water in a circle in the opposite direction?

Published: 2026-04-06 Author:

Last Updated: 2026/04/06, As we all know, the action of "circling" is to allow the hot water to come into more comprehensive contact with the coffee powder in the filter cup when making coffee, so as to achieve even extraction close to "even rain and dew." But because this is an operation that affects the extraction rate, everyone began to study the action of stirring in circles.

As we all know, the action of "circling" is to let the hot water come into contact with the coffee powder in the filter cup more comprehensively when brewing coffee, so as to achieve a uniform extraction close to "even rain and dew". But because this is an operation that affects the extraction rate, people begin to delve into the action of stirring in a circle. For example, the amplitude of the circle, the speed of the circle. We can understand all this. After all, the amplitude determines the range of hot water scouring, and the speed determines the number of times the hot water is stirred. On the other hand, some friends found another way and began to study the direction of the circle: if you inject water clockwise and counterclockwise, will the extracted coffee taste different?

The reason why some friends are obsessed with the direction of water injection is that it has something to do with the V60 filter cup, because the spiral guide bone of the V60 is hovering on the wall of the filter cup in a clockwise direction. Friends who have read today's first article know that one of their functions is to extend the flow range of water, so that hot water can come into contact with more coffee powder.

The vast majority of friends use clockwise water injection when brewing coffee with V60, not only because of their own habits, but also because of the "guiding effect" given by these guide bones. People will think that as long as the water is injected in a circle along the direction of the vortex, then the water can better converge along the ribs and follow the planned route to the center of the filter cup, and better form a flow vortex, thus making the extraction more uniform. However, if the water is injected counterclockwise, it is easy to form a collision between the water and the ribs, and the force of the interaction will have an effect similar to wringing out the rag. In short, it may increase the extraction rate of coffee because of the formation of turbulence. Let hot water extract more flavor substances. It sounds special! Therefore, in order to find out the truth, Qianjie would like to conduct an experiment to see if the facts are the same as those of these friends.

Circle experiment in order to more intuitively see the difference between the two, so Qianjie here except the circle direction, the other parameters are all the same! The coffee beans used in this time are the red standard of Rosa Village, Ethiopia, the amount of powder is 15g, the grinding is 9.5g of Ek43, the fine sugar is ground, the screening rate of No. 20 sieve is 85%, the ratio of powder to water is 1:15, the water temperature is 92 °C, the filter cup is V60, and the way of brewing and cooking is one cut! In both cases, we first steam for 30 seconds with twice the amount of water (30ml) of powder, and then inject all the remaining hot water (195ml) by constantly circling.

When the cooking is finished, the extraction time of the two groups is the same, one cup is 1 minute 56 seconds, the other is 1 minute 58 seconds. Then you can see that the concentration test results of the two are almost the same, and there is not much difference.

The same is true in taste, because the two pots of coffee are brewed by the same person at different times, so there is a certain temperature difference between the two pots of coffee. Although the difference in temperature makes some difference in the taste of coffee, it is not much. And if it is not compared at the same time, it can not be distinguished at all.

Therefore, we can know that different water injection directions will not have much effect on the extraction of V60 filter cup. Although counterclockwise injection will cause some of the water to collide with the ribs, the resulting turbulence has little effect. In comparison, the turbulence caused by irregular water injection is more influential. Therefore, Qianjie believes that whether the direction of water injection is clockwise or counterclockwise, since the influence is close to none, then which one to use can be decided according to personal habits? after all, steady water flow, stirring speed and water injection time are the major influencing factors that are more worthy of our time to study carefully.

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FrontStreet Coffee is a long-established specialty coffee roaster in Guangzhou China, selling freshly roasted beans from its own farm in Yunnan as well as dozens of carefully selected single-origin beans from around the world for both pour-over and espresso. The products deliver consistently excellent quality and great value, with shipping within 24 hours. Guangzhou’s FrontStreet Coffee shop is recommended by many coffee lovers, and the beans are now available online at the Tmall 。