Pourigami Review: Is it the Best Portable Coffee Maker?

A review and guide for Miir's unique pour over travel coffee maker

The coffee company, Miir, started a Kickstarer campaign in May 2019 for the Pourigami portable coffee maker (Kickstarter source). They quickly reached their goal in 2 months. How did they do it? Well, they made a pretty cool and useful, portable pour over coffee maker.

It’s small enough to fit into your backpack or purse without taking up too much space or adding much weight at all. It makes brewing fresh java possible anywhere there is hot water. Best of all? The pieces separate and folds up, so it doesn’t take up as much space as other portable coffee makers like the AeroPress (Learn AeroPress Recipe Tips).

You can keep it in the case it came with or use it as a bookmark.

Table of Contents

Table Of Contents

The pieces separate and folds up, so it doesn’t take up as much space as other portable coffee makers like the AeroPress.

Java Groove's Choice

The Best Portable Pour Over Coffee Maker

Pourigami is the Best Portable Pour Over

Compact, lightweight and made of great materials. It definitely has it’s place in my travel bag and deserves to come along next time you travel.

Pros

Cons

How to Use the Pourigami

The portable coffee dripper has a simple design that’s easy to use. It comes with a travel case that stores the 3 pieces flat along with filters. There is an elastic band, which holds everything in place.

Once out of the wallet the coffee maker can be put-together; somewhat like an origami, but without the fuss. The 3 stainless-steel interlocking pieces all attach with latches, so they don’t easily come apart while in use. The first time it can be a bit tricky to put together.

How to put the Pouragami Together

What Kind of Filters Does it Use?

Think of it as opposites. The long groove on 1 section latches onto the short part on another section. The Miir logo stays on the outside. Once you have 2 pieces latched together, repeat. The short end of the section clips onto the longer part of the section.

After you’ve seen how it’s done, or spent a few moments understanding how the pieces latch together you’ll wonder why it took you so long the first time.

When put together, the Miir Pourigami forms a cone shaped coffee dripper; think Kalika or V60.

Miir makes specifically designed filters that fit the Pourigami and the filters come with it. However, #2, and V60 filters do the trick too. Be advised, your going to have to fold the #2 filters a bit so it will fit. If you’ve worked with pour overs before then this is nothing new. However, folding the filter for the Pourigami takes a little finesse. The reason is so it sits lower in the Pourigami.

Below are links for smaller size filters that easily fit. The #1 size is a great fit but it is a bit more expensive at the time of this writing.

#2 Size Filters Pourigami

#1 Size Pourigami Filters

Folding Larger Paper Filters for the Pourigami

Fold the base
Fold the entire edge of one side once
Fold that same side a little more inward, like you're making the wing of a paper airplane. It’s like the first even first fold, but more inward to get a more conical shape.
Fold the opposite side once but more like a paper airplane wing.

The objective is to make a nice cone shape. It’s not going to sit flush with the Pourigami, however, when you run hot water through it then it will sit in nicely. You can pour that water out once you get the filter wet.

How much coffee do I use for the Pourigami?

There is a recipe that comes with it, but we decided to go our own route. Of course, everyone likes their coffee differently. Also, we’re going to discuss exact weight. Which, when you’re out camping, hiking or generally traveling you’re probably not going to want to bring a scale with you to weigh the beans and water.

However much you are commonly using at home, do half. At the high-end you could go 21-23 grams of coffee per serving. Going as low as 15 grams of coffee is sufficient too.

Then adding ~200-250 ml of water.

Brew Guide

Regardless if you’re using the filter that comes with it, or folding up at #2 filter (or any other filter for that matter) you’ll notice that it takes time to brew. For 8 ounces expect a 4 minute brew time. The brew comes out at 1 point. For that reason it takes about 4 minutes to brew a cup with a Pourigami.

You also have to consider that you can’t let the coffee slurry rise too high over the edges. You can use a pulsing or continuous pour. However, since it takes a longer time than your usual V60 then it’s going to be quite difficult to get a continuous pour for 4 minutes.

The fundamentals of brewing still exist. You want to swirl your pour. You want to make a bloom and let it sit. In our tests we found that a 15-20 second bloom worked well with a spiral, pulsing pour. It takes about 3 pulse pours to get the 250 ml.

We kept agitating it with the AeroPress stirrer, which seemed to increase the strength of the brew and increase the speed of brewing with it as well.

However much you are commonly using at home, do half. At the high-end you could go 21-23 grams of coffee per serving. Going as low as 15 grams of coffee is sufficient too.

Then adding ~200-250 ml of water.

Grind Size for the Pourigami

Once you see how long it takes to make a cup you’ll understand that it’s ideal to use a coarser grind. If you grind too fine then it’s not going to taste ideal.

With a Baratza Encore we had the settings at 16. Starting off at 23 and working our way down would’ve sped up the dialing-in process a bit.

At the end of the day, you’re going to have to see what works for you with experimenting and dialing in the coffee. This is the same if you were brewing with a V60 or Chemex, everyone has a preference; it takes some practice to find out what it is.

That being said, start out coarser and work your way down.

How does the Pourigami Taste?

This is a pour over coffee maker. Which essentially means, it depends on many factors. People you are accustomed to V60 or Chemex then you’ll be able to dial in the coffee a bit faster and it tastes great. You’re going to have to experiment to get the right strength and mouth feel to your liking. Again, we thought it was excellent. Especially for the convenience or size + weight of a portable coffee maker. We hate cheap plastic portable coffee makers, so you’re not going to get any of that with the Pourigami.

Conclusion

For the price and convenience you can’t go wrong with a Pourigami. Especially if you have experience with pour over coffee makers like the V60. The craftsmanship is clearly made of quality material. It comes with a pouch/case, filters and recipes to get you started.

In the end, this is coming with me whenever I travel. It doesn’t replace the AeroPress, but since it’s small, and in case I need to make more than 1 cup at a time, it’ll be coming along.

If you want to know about other travel coffee makers, check out our full review.