Cafec is a Japanese specialty coffee brand manufactured by Sanyo Sangyo Co., Ltd., founded in 1973 and credited with pioneering cone-shaped paper coffee filters. The Cafec dripper line is unusual in that it ships multiple cone geometries designed to match specific roast levels. The idea is that roast development changes bean density and solubility, so no single dripper geometry is optimal across the roast spectrum.
How the Cafec brews
The Cafec line is built around the flower-shaped rib first introduced on the original Flower Dripper. The same rib pattern now ships in four different geometries — each tuned for a different cup profile or brew size — alongside the older hexagonal Deep Dripper Pro that predates the flower-rib idea.
Cafec's heuristic pairs the geometry with the roast:
- Flower (60° cone) — flower ribs and a shallow cone. Designed for lighter roasts, where longer contact time and even wetting help extract harder-to-dissolve compounds in dense beans.
- Deep (27° and 45° cones) — same flower ribs but with a steeper cone for a deeper filtering layer. For medium-to-dark roasts and a fuller body.
- Flower Oval (trapezoid) — flower ribs on a trapezoidal opening. Combines the Flower's airflow with a trapezoid's deeper bed for a rounder, mellower cup.
- Deep Dripper Pro (hexagonal, dot ribs) — the original 45° deep dripper, with a hexagonal silhouette and dotted ribs instead of flower pleats. Cafec is positioning the newer Flower-ribbed Deep 45 as its successor, but the Pro is still sold and brews a distinctly rich cup.
All Cafec drippers use proprietary paper filters (some premium lines are fabric-based). The filters themselves come in different paper grades — Medium Roast, Light Roast, Dark Roast — each with a different thickness and drainage rate. This gives you two ways to match the dripper to the bean: geometry and filter grade.
Models in this family
- Cafec Flower Cup 1 — single-cup 60° cone Flower dripper. 10-18 g dose.
- Cafec Flower Cup 4 — larger 60° cone Flower for 2-4 cups. 20-35 g dose.
- Cafec Deep 27 — flower-ribbed Deep dripper with 27° cone. Single-cup, pour-into-one-point design.
- Cafec Deep 45 — flower-ribbed Deep dripper with 45° cone. For 3-7 cups; balanced and forgiving.
- Cafec Flower Oval 101 — trapezoidal Flower hybrid for 1-2 cups. 12-18 g dose, single bottom hole.
- Cafec Flower Oval 102 — trapezoidal Flower hybrid for 2-4 cups. 20-30 g dose, two bottom holes for steadier drawdown at scale.
- Cafec Deep Pro — older hexagonal 45° Deep dripper with dotted ribs. 30-50 g dose for 3-7 cups; predecessor of the Deep 45.
The cone-shaped models accept V60-compatible paper filters in emergency, but Cafec's own filter line is designed to match each dripper's flow characteristics. The Flower Oval and Deep Pro use Cafec's dedicated trapezoid and Deep paper filters respectively.
What Cafec recipes in this collection share
Cafec recipes tend to be roast-matched: lighter-roast single origins go to Flower with Light Roast paper, darker roasts go to Deep with Dark Roast paper. This creates a strong pairing discipline that the V60's one-size-fits-all approach sidesteps. Typical parameter ranges across both styles:
- Ratio: 1:14 to 1:17
- Water temperature: 88 to 95 °C (lower for Deep with dark roasts)
- Grind: medium-fine to medium
- Total brew time: 2:30 to 4:00
Choose Cafec when you frequently brew across roast levels and want a dripper + filter system engineered for each, or when you want a V60 alternative with more explicit roast-level guidance.