Cotton coffee Filters have been around for many years, in fact cotton coffee filters and cloth coffee filters were used well before paper filters.

Today paper filters are very popular in certain parts of the world, many people like the clean tasting cup profile that paper can achieve.

When we tried to source a couple of different cotton filters to stock at Basic Barista we were frankly quite disappointed with the quality, cheap sewing techniques paired with inexpensive and low quality cotton materials resulted in a stiff filter that did not last long (1 Year at most) and more worrying, produced a poor tasting cup of coffee.

Because of this in 2021 we set out to design and manufacturer the best cotton coffee filter, heres how we did it.

The Materials:

You may be familiar with the popular coffee saying ‘your coffee will only ever be as good as the beans you use’, well while this popular saying is true it is especially true for our Aji Filters. After prototyping hundreds of designs and materials we ended up choosing a hand loomed cotton sourced from a social enterprise in Bihar, India.

This cotton has a tight weave yet is relatively light weigh, this lightweight cotton actually has some fantastic brewing propperties, when wet this cotton transforms into a silk - like texture. This allows the cotton to wrap arround the coffee dripper and create a better seal compared to other cloth coffee filters, in fact it is this seal that helps increase the coffee to water contact time and give your coffee it’s destinct flavour we love from Aji Filters.

The Design:

Overlocking is only really good for pants, not coffee filters :/

So if overlocking is soooo bad for cloth filters durability and longevity then why do manufacturers still using this sewing technique? It’s really simple, overlocking is quick and efficient. We played around with designs that utilised overlocking the edges as well as biased binding and found that these sewing techniques drastically took away from the overall durability of the coffee filter.

Every Edge on the Aji Filter is atleast sewn twice (Sometimes 4 times!!) This double stitching does take us much more time to manufacturer compared to overlocking but the results are well and truely worth it.

Aji Filters are So Expensive:

As we already mentioned our increased labour to manufacturer in addition to our premium hand loomed cotton we source our Aji Filters are priced higher compared to other cloth coffee filters but while $30 may seem like a lot of money for a coffee filter, we like to think of it like this:

Most cotton filters advertise they last 1 year, ours can last 2-3 years and taste so much better even at the end of their life. Aji Filters are the first cotton coffee filter to feature on stage at the 2023 Australian National Brewers Coffee Competition and while $30 may seem like a lot of money compared to 100 paper filters that will set you back $15 Aji Filters well and truely last more than 100 uses, meaning Aji Filters are definitely worth the money.

Are Aji Filters Worth it?

If you are brewing pour over or filter coffee multiple times a week and are looking for a sustainable and reusable alternative to paper coffee filters that doesn’t give up on taste then Aji Filters are perfect for you. Have confidence in knowing that your Aji Filter is made from the highest quality hand loomed cotton that wont break after a handfull of uses and wont make your coffee taste like absolute trash after using.

The future of cotton coffee filters in the coffee industry

I am a huge believer that cotton is the future choice of paper in the coffee industry, as more and more people make daily changes to their lifestyle for the betterment of the environment and the world I can see more and more people opting for reusable products such as Aji Filter in the future.

In fact, we can see that over a 5 year time frame there is a shared growth for both paper coffee filters and reusable coffee filters, while there is more growth for paper filters this is followed closely behind by reusable coffee filters.

How a Stronger design makes a bigger impact

We throw around the word ‘stronger’ a fair bit, and it is actually quite hard to measure the strength of a finished product. What we mean when we say Aji filter is ‘stronger’ is that the design paired with the hand loomed cotton makes a durable filter, the fact that every single edge is at least double stitched and on one side is sewn up to 4 times the Aji Filter has held up well and truely longer than other cloth filter designs.

A Filter that gives back

If you aren’t sold on our filters features yet then maybe you didn’t know this:

Aji Filters are made from hand-loomed cotton sourced through a social enterprise in Bihar, India. This was actually a very happy coincidence, as we were prototyping and blind tasting different materials, this particular material stood out as being the best tasting, strongest and met all our other criteria. This material just so happened to be imported by a social enterprise.

What does a social enterprise do?

A social Enterprise is essentiall a ‘non for proffit’ the funds generated from selling the cotton goes directly back into building the communities that produced the cotton all the way in Bihar, India. Why this is important is because it means that as we grow and more people use Aji Filters, the purchases of cotton gives back into this program with a great cause.

Brewing with Cotton Coffee Filters

When brewing with Cotton Coffee Filters for the first time the general consensus is that they are fast flowing. While this may come as an initial shock or surprise to people I actually believe there are more advantages to a faster flowing filter compared to a filter that draws down slower.

After your first brew you are likely to (and we recommend) make a grind size adjustment to be a couple of clicks finer. When brewing with cotton coffee filters it is important to dial your coffee in by taste and not by brew time. A lot of this will be up to your personal preference too.