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What filter cup is best for novice hand-brewed coffee? Is the flat-bottomed filter cup easier to use than the V60? What are the advantages and disadvantages of conical filter cups?

Published: 2026-02-25 Author:

Last Updated: 2026/02/25, If you want a Xiaobai who has no experience in injecting water to make a good cup of coffee, Qianjie believes that most coffee bosses will not recommend using the "all-gold oil"V60 in the filter cup world, but a cake filter cup. Because compared with conical filter cups, cake filter cups do not require too high water injection skills.

If you want a rookie who has no water filling experience to make a cup of coffee, then Qianjie believes that most coffee bosses will not recommend using the "universal oil" V60 in the filter cup, but the cake filter cup. Because compared with the tapered filter cup, the cake filter cup does not require too much water filling ability, at the same time, it can also flush out the sweetness of coffee more easily.

Well, today, Qianjie will come to share with you what the characteristics of the cake filter cup are, why it does not require high water injection, and why it can more easily flush out the sweetness of coffee!

What is a cake filter cup? Perhaps when most friends hear the cake filter cup for the first time, they will imagine how the shape or design of the filter cup will be related to the cake. But as we can see from the picture below, without exception, these filter cups called cake filter cups are difficult to associate with the cake.

There is no doubt that they have nothing to do with cake. They are called cake filter cups mainly because the filter paper they use is shaped like cupcake cake paper, so they are called cake filter cups.

But it is not difficult to find that these filter cups have one thing in common: their bottom is not like a tapered or fan-shaped filter cup, but a flat bottom (except for origami filter cups). Because the bottom is flat, the filter paper is different from the usual, and because of this, they also have a special nickname-flat bottom filter cup. The first filter cup in the world was the flat-bottomed version, invented by Mrs. Melita. But it wasn't popularized until 2010, when kalita, a well-known Japanese coffee maker, released a filter cup called Kalita Wave (translated as wave), which made the flat-bottomed filter cup known to the world.

In recent years, many contestants have won the championship in the competition with a flat-bottomed filter cup, so we can know that the flat-bottomed filter cup is not inferior to the sharp-bottomed filter cup, and it also has its own advantages.

What are the advantages of cake / flat bottom filter cup? The advantage of the cake filter cup mainly comes from its flat bottom. as mentioned in front of the street, whether it is a tapered filter cup or a fan-shaped filter cup, the bottom of the cake filter cup is a pointed bottom, so when the coffee powder is poured in, the powder bed structure mainly presents an inverted cone. The inverted conical powder bed structure means that the cross section area of each layer of the powder bed is not the same, from top to bottom, so the thickness of the powder bed is relatively thicker. The location and intensity of our water injection will have a significant impact on the extraction. Because the thickness of the powder bed passed by the water injected at different positions is different, the extraction efficiency of coffee powder is different because of the different liquid concentration and penetration.

As shown in the picture, due to the flat bottom and large area of the cake filter cup, the structure of the coffee powder bed after pouring will be an inverted cone. Even, the powder bed structure of some filter cups with less inclined wall will be closer to the cylinder. Whether it is a platform or a cylinder, the area of each cross section of the powder bed is very close, which means that the thickness of the powder bed will be reduced, even if the position of our water injection is not so standard and uniform, using different water flows. but the extraction rate of coffee powder in each place will be very similar. This means that when we use a flat-bottomed filter cup for water injection, we do not need to deliberately change the scope and position of water injection like a sharp-bottomed filter cup, such as around a large circle.

At the same time, because the number of openings of most flat-bottomed filter cups is small and small, the penetration rate of liquid is slow. This can add a certain soaking function to the extraction, so that all coffee powder can be extracted in roughly the same way. Although this does not have the same excellent layering as the cone-shaped filter cup, the coffee will be more balanced and sweeter.

So this is one of the reasons why cake filter cups are recommended as beginners! However, again, there is no difference between good and bad filter cups, they all have their own advantages, we can also change the parameters and cooking methods to make different filter cups get similar extraction results.

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