Coffee review

How to use Switch to make high-sweet coffee? What is the difference between Hario and Mr. Clever's Smart Cup?

Published: 2025-04-22 Author:
Last Updated: 2025/04/22, With its unique valve design and simple and clear operation, the Smart Cup has become a "novice coffee artifact." Because even newcomers can achieve professional-level coffee extraction results with simple operations. Therefore, the Smart Cup became widely popular and won the love of everyone after it was launched. And with the Smart Cup

With its unique valve design and simple and clear operation, the Smart Cup has become a "novice coffee artifact." Because even newcomers can achieve professional-level coffee extraction results with simple operations. Therefore, the Smart Cup became widely popular and won the love of everyone after it was launched.

With the popularity of Smart Cup, more and more manufacturers have begun to learn from ideas and design their own "Smart Cup" products. For example, the style it designs is arguably the most popular version at present except Mr. Clever (the smart cup pictured above, invented by EK INTL, the originator of the smart cup). Therefore, after Qianjie shared the characteristics of the Smart Cup two months ago, many friends called Qianjie to introduce the "Smart Cup" designed by Hario-Switch.

Wait, Qianjie knows what some friends are thinking now! But unfortunately, this "Switch" is not the other "Switch", so there is nothing in this article to teach you how to use a game console to make coffee (of course, there will not be any in the future).

Switch is an immersion filter cup ("Smart Cup") launched by Hario a few years ago. Its highlight is that it can switch extraction modes at any time, so Qianjie speculated that this was why it was named "Switch"(Switch, Switch).

Whether it is Switch or Mr. Clever, the originator of the Smart Cup, all Smart Cup controls the water flow through a valve at the bottom, thus realizing the switch between immersion extraction and trickle-type extraction. However, Switch's control of water flow is designed on a switch rather than relying on its own weight, so it will be more convenient to switch. The biggest difference between Switch and its originator lies in this place. The structure of Switch's "smart cup" is mainly divided into two parts: the filter cup body and the base with a valve system installed. The filter cup of the main body is a classic glass "all-gold oil"-V60. Its size will be similar to the regular 02V60, but it will be smaller. Because it is a single-serving filter cup, but because the immersion style requires pouring all the hot water in one go, the body design will be larger than the regular 01V60.

The base connected to the bottom of the filter cup is made of silicone material, and its built-in valve system is composed of small steel balls and a transparent paddle designed with a lever structure. The valve is closed by default, and a small steel ball will block the only liquid outlet to achieve sealing. But when we press the paddle switch, the small steel ball will be pushed open by the paddle, and then the coffee liquid will flow out due to the opening of the valve. After we lift the paddle up (to be reasonable, it is counter-intuitive), the steel ball will return to its original position and close the valve.

Since such a design can switch the extraction mode of coffee without moving the filter cup, after its launch, various gods started to get started and developed various extraction methods based on its characteristics, such as Tetsu Miya's Devil Brewing Method, which was developed in accordance with the characteristics of Switch's "Smart Cup." Speaking of this, Qianjie has to mention another major advantage of Switch's "Smart Cup"-it is detachable. The filter cup and the base are not integrally formed. You only need to grab each end with your hand and pull hard to separate the filter cup from the base.

This design has two advantages: one is easy to clean. Because the filter cup can be removed, the dead corners originally blocked by the filter cup can also be deeply cleaned; another advantage is that the filter cup can be replaced! This is what Qianjie likes. As long as the bottom size of other filter cups is the same as the original one, you can directly install it on this base and DIY other versions of the smart cup. For example, the Infinite Filter Cup can be installed directly on the base of the Switch after being disassembled to make a version with a slower flow rate, which can be said to be very playable.

This is roughly the case! Other aspects are actually no different from Mr. Clever Smart Cup (such as coffee extraction), so what you are interested in can move to "Why is the Smart Cup known as a" coffee artifact "?" This article understands that there are three different smart cup extraction methods in detail, but I won't introduce them too much here. But obviously, the article is not over yet. Here, Qianjie would like to share with you an extraction method that the great gods have liked to use recently: the top-throwing method. The top-throwing method is a classic technique often used in the production of siphon pots/Aole pressed coffee (that is, the soak extraction category). So what is the top-throwing method? Usually, the steps we make coffee are to powder first, then wet and brew the coffee powder with hot water, and extract it. The top-throwing rule means to first add hot water to the filter, and then add coffee powder to stir. The advantage of this method is that it allows the coffee to be extracted more evenly, thus obtaining a higher sweetness. It's no use saying more. Next, Qianjie will come to demonstrate how to operate the top-throwing method! So the coffee beans used in this front street demonstration are medium and lightly roasted Essay ALO. The extraction parameters are as follows: powder amount used: 17g Grinding degree: Ek43 8-scale grinding, 90% sieving ratio of No. 20 sieve powder to water ratio: 1:15 Operating water temperature: 95°C Extraction time: 4 minutes So first, we use a small amount to preheat the filter cup. After the preheating is over, release the hot water for preheating and dump it, then close the valve and inject the entire target amount of water into the filter bowl. The amount of powder used in the front street here is 17g, so inject 255ml of hot water. (No more, it will easily overflow)

After filling the hot water, we directly poured in all the coffee powder and started counting.

Then take out the stirring stick, press all the coffee powder floating on the surface into the water, and stir. The number of rounds of stirring is about 10 rounds. The purpose of stirring at this time is to allow full contact between the water and the coffee powder.

When the time comes to 1 minute and 3 minutes, we stir once respectively. The number of stirring turns is still 10, but the purpose of these two times is to speed up the dissolution of flavor substances in the coffee.

When the time reaches 4 minutes, we can open the water valve and release the coffee liquor.

When the coffee is filtered, we can remove the filter cup and finish the extraction and start enjoying the coffee!

As Qianjie said, the ALO extracted in this way has a very good sweetness, a mellow taste, and the flavors of mango, citrus, pineapple and other are very obvious. It is very good. But compared to making coffee, Qianjie actually prefers using this "smart cup" to do another thing: make tea!

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