Aeropress – Why is a simple coffee maker such a hit?
ft.com
ft.com
If anybody can read it, tell me how I did!
And if I remember correctly, CoffeeGeek at one point had it ranked so high that the cheapest coffee machine above it in the rankings was something like $1000.
Of course, not talking espresso here, where entirely different equipment is necessary.
What are you referring to here? The only expensive coffee equipment I see regularly in people's homes is the espresso machine. But your last sentence implies that's not what you mean. What other expensive coffee makers are people using?
Around here (Germany) many people also have coffee machines that automatically grind and brew the coffee. At a few hundred euros they are again not prohibitively expensive, but most people still feel they need them to get one or two cups of coffee a day.
I just met far to many people who believe if your machine costs several hundred euros and your coffee comes out of a pod it must be better than anything you brew by hand and of course brewing by hand takes infinite times longer. Maybe people are more reasonable where you are? Or you just know more knowledgeable coffee lovers than I do. ;-)
There are probably a lot of people that use pod-based machines, but perhaps just not among my friends. (Personally I think pod-based coffee should be banned for environmental reasons.)
1) It offers pressure extraction by hand, without complicated moving parts or fragility. There is nothing to break on an aeropress.
2) It requires less effort and less time to brew consistently than the other methods. I can pour extract, and clean an Aeropress in the 4 minutes it takes for a dripper to drip, and it tastes the same each time with less precision invested.
3) It can be safely carried anywhere (along with ground coffee) that has boiling water and a mug to press it into, without shattering in your bag. It can be rinsed, shaken dry, and put back into your bag without getting coffee grounds anywhere.
Note that I haven’t used my Aeropress in years because I don’t want the flavor it produces right now (French Press, filtered, approximately). But I could boil water, pull it out of a drawer and use it to make a good cup of coffee in five minutes including cleanup. That’s a high bar to meet.
1) I put the FT link into bitly 2) I then put the bitly link into outline.com
But as of late I've switched back to just making regular ol' drip coffee in a cheap coffee maker with Chock full 'o nuts coffee.
As easy as an aeropress is compared to other quality brewing methods, I still find the drip machine much easier -- load up the filter and water, walk away, come back and pour a cup. (Plus, I can't seem to get my aeropress not to also pee down the side of the mug as I press it down)
Somehow, my coffee experience hasn't degraded at all. No, it doesn't taste the same, but to me it's still totally fine, and almost always a better coffee than the drip I get from most coffee shops.
Amazing coffee in an aeropress is just a white whale for me.
"The AeroPress is the coffee version of Linux, the geeks’ preferred computer operating system. It is not pretty, not especially easy, but it is effective and almost cool."
Smiled, and said my wife won't sacrifice counter space.
He came back with Aeropress and i've never looked back. Near espresso flavor... I do double size - 16 grams fresh ground (using a Porlex) with 6 grams of water:coffee.
Also use the "upside down" hack and permafilters (the finest screen one).
As someone whose counter space is "wasted" on a rather large espresso machine, let me just say, you need to try better coffee. Especially if you're "starting a business importing roasted coffee". You have no way to test if your product is any good otherwise.
You can actually do the upside down hack right side up because the valve is sealed.
The only other thing that come close to to meeting these goals is instant coffee, which has other drawbacks...