Melitta Cone Coffee Filters: Simply the Best

For home brewers of drip coffee, there are only several key ingredients and components. There is, of course, the coffee itself – your favorite blend ground to the correct level for the type of drip ‘system’ that you prefer. Then there is the hot water. Those are obvious and people tend to pay a lot of attention to the coffee and grind itself and less so to the water they use to heat and brew it. But even more casually neglected than the water, can be the two pieces of equipment necessary to the brewing process (not counting the cup or carafe itself). These are 1) The filter holder that sits atop your cup (if you are brewing a single cup) and 2) The filter you use inside that holder to contain the coffee while you pour the hot water over it.

When the filter does what it is supposed to do, all grounds and a good deal of the acidy sediment is filtered out and what winds up in your cup or carafe is your coffee- the way you really want it. Dark, hot, smooth and delicious.

As is the case with so many things in life – whether it is coffee, fruit, cars or doctors – not all filters are created equal. While few will find this concept anything new or surprising, there continues to be a rather substantial market for inferior paper cone filters that, in my experience, fail to do their job completely or satisfactorily. That is to say, many of the ‘brandless’ supermarket cone filters I have tried do not filter out everything. My cup of coffee is left with ground floating in it and appreciable sediment on the bottom. It just isn’t supposed to be that way.

One of the earlier of the promoters of cone topped drip carafes, Melitta, which also makes and markets its own brand of coffee and other coffee-related accessories, makes their cone-shaped filters in four sizes and two varieties. The sizes, from smallest to largest are #’s 1,2,4 and 6. The two varieties are white and unbleached. Although the unbleached ones have a nice, light brown, organic look to them, I have found the traditional bleached ones to be a tad more reliable and less likely to ‘leak’ solid materials of any kind into my coffee.

As is the case with many other things, you can save money by buying a different product. I would suggest that for those to whom their coffee really matters, that a few cents more per box for what I have found to be the most reliable filters made, is well worth the slight additional cost.