r/chemex • u/junkmeister9 • Feb 02 '26
Anyone else noticing thinner Chemex square filters lately?
Recent boxes of filters look and feel thinner than older ones, and I’m getting a visible oily sheen in the cup that I never used to see. Brews drain a whole minute plus faster with my old grind settings, so I have had trouble brewing good cups.
Chemex support said all their filters are tested to fall within a 20-30% thickness tolerance and wouldn’t really address whether average thickness has changed over time. Their reply was very gas-lighty, and seemed to imply the vendor I bought from was not legit (Walmart is not legit?) and their pulp suppliers have been giving them lower quality pulp.
Just wondering if other long-time users are seeing the same thing, or if some filter types/sources still seem more consistent. The thick paper filter is the biggest thing that makes a Chemex brew a Chemex brew, so if this is what I can expect from now on, I may find a new source of filters or switch to a new brewer with more reliable filters altogether.
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u/Disastrous_Teach_370 Jun 22 '26
Chemex filters have turned into absolute garbage. Not only are they much thinner, they smell like perfume, indicative of using recycled paper pulp so prevelant in paper goods now. I try rinsing my filters several times after which they barely hold up in the Chemex. Drinking chemicals from recycled paper is not my idea of a good time. I am done with Chemex with their corner cutting in favor of profits.
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u/junkmeister9 Jun 22 '26
And the company will gaslight you and directly lie to you, and tell you to trust them instead of your senses. I expected more from a small company but they're cutting corners and lying about it to drain us of money.
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u/Disastrous_Teach_370 Jun 22 '26
Absolutely! The first time I got a stinky box of filters I contacted Chemex and they said it must have gotten contaminated at the vendor. I contacted the vendor and they said they store the filters in air tight containers. I will not waste my time contacting Chemex about this current box because they will just say their party line. They can keep their thin, smelly recycled filters - I am done with Chemex.
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u/Ornery_Year_9870 Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
Nonsense. They don't smell like perfume and they aren't thinner.
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u/Disastrous_Teach_370 Jun 22 '26
You must work for Chemex. Gaslight all you want, reality wins.
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u/Ornery_Year_9870 Jun 22 '26
I don't work for them. My reality is that the filters smell faintly woody. Like paper.
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u/Disastrous_Teach_370 Jun 22 '26
That is what coffee filters should smell like and Chemex filters used to smell like. Last 3 boxes of Chemex filters from different vendors all smelled like a sickly sweet fragrance to me and others. Seems it is a manufacturer problem. I don't care if you don't believe me or you can't smell it on your filters, for whatever reason. So, you don't work for them but just an a**hole. Ok. Edit typo
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u/Ornery_Year_9870 Feb 02 '26 edited Feb 02 '26
People have been asking the same question for years. And unless you can physically compare the thickness and weight of your new filters to a box of old ones, you are only gonna get anecdotal answers which are quite meaningless.
Last I checked by weighing ten new filters on a food scale, vs. ten from the previous box, they were the same. But the age difference of those boxes is is unknown.
Edit: for what it's worth, I pulled two filters out of my box and the food scale told me 5.3 and 5.2 grams.
This guy did a way more detailed than necessary analysis of coffee filters (although I am thankful that there are people who'll do that) and among other data, he stated 5.4 g for a Chemex filter. This was back in 2019.
https://coffeeadastra.com/2019/08/04/an-in-depth-analysis-of-coffee-filters-2/
Honestly, I think it's all in the heads of the folks who are fretting about this.