How to negotiate v60 paper filter into Orea v3 using a cheap plastic sauce container

I wasn’t planning to buy the Orea v3. Orea products are pretty hard to come by around here. Even if they’re available, it’s usually with a pretty significant markup. A few days ago, I saw a secondhand Orea v3 for sale. It looked well taken care of by the owner. It wasn’t cheap, but all things considered, also not overly expensive. Fear of missing out struck me and I immediately bought it.

I bought the brewer, but I forgot to buy the wave filter and the negotiator until a couple of days later. So when the brewer arrived, I thought I couldn’t immediately brew coffee with it.

I got impatient and wondered if I can fold a v60 paper filter and fit it in into the Orea v3 by hand without using the 3D printed negotiator tool.

It was tough, and I wasn’t getting good results. While messing around with the paper filter, I noticed this plastic sauce container lying around in the kitchen. I thought that the diameter is similar to the Orea v3 base diameter. Hm…

I suppose you can already guess where this is going.

Step-by-step

1. Prepare one v60 filter size 02. This one is the Cafec Abaca+ paper filter.

2. Fold on the ridges side.

3. Gently fold it in half. You don’t have to press hard on this fold, you only need this fold to make a guide line.

4. Fold the bottom of the paper filter to the rough diameter of the Orea’s base.

5. Like this.

6. Push the filter in until it hits the bottom.

7. Open the paper filter and hold the new fold created to the wall (the one opposite the ridge side).

8. Place the plastic sauce container inside the paper filter.

9. Push it in to the bottom.

10. Hold the sauce container down and properly fold the paper filter on both fold lines. The one on the ridges side, and one on the opposite side.

11. It should look like this. You can now wet the paper filter and brew coffee with it.

It may not be the prettiest, but it works!

When I brew coffee with it, the paper mostly adheres to the wall.

My first impressions using the Orea:

• It makes a really strong but tasty cup of coffee.
• Not really suitable for making bigger batch of coffee. I often brew 400-450gr of coffee into my glass-lined thermal carafe and drink it throughout the day. It can be done, but it takes much longer because I need to do more pours (~6 minutes). Low bypass also means slower drawdown time in general. I prefer using the Hario Switch 03 for this.

I hope this can help someone out there 😀