It does, in a couple ways. First : We already talked about "paper taste". The bleached paper of Melitta and Hario filters tend to be fairly transparent after a quick rinse, whereas we pick up on more of a 'papery' flavor from Bonmac's Bamboo filters. To use those, rinse them with more water, and they work great. Some brands of unbleached brown filters are very, very papery. We don't carry those. You can always check on paper taste: take a sip of the hot water you wash through your filter (before adding coffee of course). Taste the differences in "paper water"and see. Yum. (The level of filtration and quality of the material can have a fairly big impact on the cup as well. Second: Paper filters are going to remove some soluble compounds, oils etc. But good paper filters will also filter out insoluble compounds and material that increases the bitterness in the cup. In a sense a good filter can improve coffee taste. If you have ever drained the last coffee from a french press, then looked in the bottom of your cup, what you see are residual fines that are very bitter. A good quality paper filter removes that from your coffee.