6 Best Pour Over Coffee Makers: Glass, Ceramic and Stainless Compared

Written by Lara Yehia. Lara researches home and kitchen products for Cupindy. Last reviewed: October 28, 2026.

A pour over coffee maker is a cone that holds a filter over a mug or carafe while you pour hot water through the grounds by hand. For most kitchens, the Bodum 34 oz is the simplest start: glass, steel, and nothing to refill. If taste comes first, a ceramic Hario V60 with paper filters is the one to learn on.

Two things shape the cup: what the cone is made of, and what the filter is made of. The six picks below are sorted that way.

Pour over coffee makers compared

Everything here comes from the maker's own listing or care page, plus what TechGearLab and Taste of Home reported from their own tests. Dishwasher notes are the maker's, part by part.

Glass, ceramic, stainless or plastic: what touches your coffee

Glass and ceramic are smooth, non-porous surfaces that are easy to keep clean, but both break. Stainless steel survives drops and travel, and it heats up fast. Plastic is light, holds heat poorly, and keeps hot water against plastic for the whole brew.

A few details from the makers' own pages.

Borosilicate is the heat-tolerant glass used in lab ware. Chemex says its borosilicate glass is non-porous and imparts no flavor or chemicals. Bodum, asked about lead on Target's product Q&A, replied that there is none in its Pour Over. It also said the steel filter has a BPA-free plastic part, and the Amazon listing names plastic and silicone among the materials. So the Bodum is not a plastic-free pot, even though the coffee mostly touches glass and steel.

Ceramic cones are glazed, and glaze is where lead questions come from with mugs and dishes. Neither Hario nor DOWAN publishes a lead or cadmium test on the pages we read. We have no reason to think there is a problem, but with no test published we can't confirm there isn't one, so we won't call either cone lead-free. Our guide to checking ceramic mugs for lead explains what to look for and how to test a glaze at home.

Hario makes its metal V60 in uncoated stainless steel with a silicone holder. The thing to watch with steel is heat, covered in the stainless section below.

Glass carafe makers: a full pot, with a couple of quirks

A carafe maker brews straight into its own serving jug. You fill the cone, pour, wait, lift the cone out and serve. It's the most practical way to make coffee for two or more people without a machine.

All three glass picks are borosilicate. The Bodum and the Chemex differ in the filter. The Bodum uses a built-in steel mesh, so there's nothing to buy after the first day. The Chemex uses thick paper filters made for it, which give a cleaner, lighter cup.

The Cosori is the third glass option. It works like the Bodum, with a glass carafe and a double-layer 304 steel filter, and Taste of Home found the filter kept grounds out of the cup. The catch is the wooden sleeve. It has to come off to wash the carafe, and Cosori says the sleeve only needs a wipe with a cloth.

Ceramic cones: the clearest cup, with a learning curve

A cone dripper sits on top of your mug or a small server. You put a paper filter in, add coffee, and pour in stages. There's no carafe, so it suits one or two cups at a time.

TechGearLab notes the V60 is common in specialty coffee shops. Ceramic holds heat once it's warm, and the paper filter does the rest, catching the fine particles and most of the oils that a metal mesh lets through.

If you want to try a ceramic-style cone first, the DOWAN porcelain dripper does the same job. It brews 2 to 4 cups, takes paper filters (not included), and its listing marks it dishwasher safe.

Stainless steel drippers: durable, but they run hot

A steel cone is the sturdy choice, and Hario's UK store calls the metal V60 durable enough for travel. It brews the same way as ceramic, with a paper filter, but the metal behaves differently.

Hario says its metal V60 has good thermal conductivity, so it warms up quickly during the brew. That's useful on a cold counter. It can also push the brew a little hot. TechGearLab found that two other steel drippers, the Kalita Wave and the Fellow Stagg X, made slightly ashy, dry cups, and it suggests using water a few degrees cooler with steel.

TechGearLab's pick for beginners is a flat-bottom steel dripper, the Kalita Stainless Wave 155, which it describes as forgiving. For travel, TechGearLab and Taste of Home both feature the MiiR Pourigami, a steel cone that breaks down flat.

Paper or metal filter?

A paper filter gives a cleaner, lighter cup and catches most of the oils and fine particles, but you have to keep buying them. A metal filter never runs out and lets more body and oil through, along with some fine silt at the bottom of the cup.

Choose by the cup you like and whether you want to keep buying filters.

Two practical notes:

• Rinse a paper filter with hot water before adding coffee. TechGearLab found that natural unbleached Chemex filters gave a papery, slightly dirty-tasting cup unless rinsed. Rinsing also warms the cone.
• With a metal filter, try a slightly coarser grind. Taste of Home's tester got a smoother cup that way with a mesh-filter carafe.

If avoiding bleached paper is part of why you're here, our non-toxic coffee maker guide goes through the filter question in more detail.

One cup or a full pot?

Match the maker to how many cups you make.

• One or two cups, made fresh: a cone on a mug. The Hario V60 ceramic or metal, or the DOWAN.
• A pot for the house or for guests: a carafe. The Chemex 6-cup for a paper-filter cup, the Bodum or Cosori to skip paper.
• Somewhere in between: a size 02 cone over a small glass server gives you up to four cups without a full carafe.

Plastic cones and water-tank drippers: what to know

Plastic pour over makers are light and hard to break, and some are built to make the process easier. The OXO Brew has a small water tank on top that releases water at a set rate, so you don't need a steady pour. TechGearLab found it a good fit for beginners.

The trade-off is heat and material. TechGearLab found the plastic Melitta cone held heat poorly, which made for a less even brew. Taste of Home was doubtful the all-plastic OXO would hold up. And on every brew, water near boiling runs through the plastic. If keeping hot water off plastic is part of the reason you're switching to pour over, a glass, ceramic or steel cone is the better buy.

What you need besides the dripper

A cone and a kettle are enough to start. These make the result easier to repeat.

• A kettle with a thin spout. A gooseneck lets you pour slowly and in a circle, and that slow pour is most of the technique. Our kettle guide covers what the inside of a kettle is made of.
• A kitchen scale. Weighing coffee and water is the easiest way to repeat a good brew. See our notes on choosing a kitchen scale.
• A burr grinder. Freshly ground, even grounds give the most consistent cup. Pre-ground coffee works at a medium grind.

How to make pour over coffee

Use water just off the boil, around 195 to 205 F, and about 55 grams of coffee per liter of water. That's the Specialty Coffee Association's standard. Wet the grounds first, wait 30 seconds, then pour the rest in slow stages. TechGearLab aims for a total brew of 2.5 to 3 minutes.

For a 10 oz mug, that works out to roughly 16 grams of coffee, or a little over 3 tablespoons.

1. Heat the water and let it sit off the boil for about 30 seconds.
2. Put the filter in the cone and rinse it with hot water. Pour the rinse water away.
3. Add the ground coffee and shake the cone gently to level it.
4. Pour just enough water to wet all the grounds. Wait 30 seconds while they bubble up.
5. Pour the rest slowly in circles, a little at a time, until you reach your total. Aim for a total brew time of about 2.5 to 3 minutes.

If the coffee tastes sour, grind finer or pour more slowly. If it tastes bitter or dry, grind coarser, and with a steel cone try slightly cooler water.

What about automatic pour over machines?

A few machines now copy the pour over method, pulsing water over the grounds on a timer. They are machines rather than drippers, and the water sits in a tank and passes a heating element before it reaches the coffee. If you'd rather press a button, our picks for machines with a cleaner water path cover what touches the water inside, and the coffee machine guide compares machine types.

Which one to pick

• Easiest, no paper to buy: Bodum 34 oz
• Best-tasting single cup: Hario V60 ceramic
• Coffee for guests: Chemex 6-cup
• Won't break, travels well: Hario V60 Metal
• Paperless carafe with a wood grip: Cosori
• Simplest way to try pour over: DOWAN porcelain

How we chose these six

We did not brew with these ourselves. We read each maker's own product and care pages, compared them with the Amazon listing details, and used two published test reviews, TechGearLab's and Taste of Home's, for how the cups taste and how each one handles in use. Every source is named above. Each pick was in stock when we checked on October 28, 2026, and sits in one of the three materials people ask about most: glass, ceramic or stainless steel. Where a maker doesn't publish something, such as a glaze test, we say so instead of guessing. Our Amazon links are affiliate links, and each pick's catch is listed even when it makes the product look worse.

Questions people ask

Sources: product listings and care pages from Bodum, Hario, Chemex, Cosori and DOWAN; Hario: V60 Metal Dripper; Specialty Coffee Association: brewing best practices; Chemex: Classic Series support; TechGearLab: Best Pour Over Coffee Makers; Taste of Home: Best Pour-Over Coffee Makers (updated June 2026).

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