The Invention of the AeroPress (2014) | Hacker News Reader

The Invention of the AeroPress (2014)

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I'm the only coffee drinker in the house and I love my AeroPress:

* It's fast

* It's foolproof

* It makes good quality coffee

* It's camping friendly

All of the tedium and unforced errors of pour over coffee disappears: "blooming", meticulous pouring technique, realtime measuring of water/coffee ratio. The hardest part is I use a hand grinder but even that isn't so bad.

The camping/road trip scenario is what lead me to AeroPress many years ago. The fact that it was able to replace all the other methods and home and work was a total bonus!

Disclaimer: total AeroPress nerd and fanboy

A pour over doesn’t need to be that complicated, though. For most people it’s just a matter of throwing a scoop of coffee into a filter cone and pouring hot water over it.

Sure you can get a more precise outcome with more fiddling, but it’s a tradeoff of effort vs. diminishing rewards.

this is what i do. I just need my fix, takes me all of 10-15 secs to get it.

My wife is in the same boat as you. She ended up just going back to single serve french press. She thinks it is just simpler and taste great.

Same, except I went with a Hario V01 pourover. I do use single serve French press sometimes.

The basic tradeoff for Aeropress is more complex flavor but weaker mouth feel, and I decided I wanted a richer texture. Usually drink darker roasts, so squeezing every note out of the beans is less important to me.

The paper element removes some of the oils (mouthfeel/body), and you can use a metal filter to retain the expected mouthfeel.

Presumably you mean with the Aeropress?

I've tried it, it makes a difference but there's still a distinct Americano sort of 'hit'. Aeropress is the closest thing to espresso short of a maker, and for an affogado it's peerless, but that's the only way I tend to take a shot of coffee at home.

Also using a Porlex these days and the pourover is much more forgiving of a rougher grind. Pulling a decent Areo shot means I have the nut tight enough that the grind takes half again as long.

Do you use the Hario Mini Slim [1] as well? One thing I love about it is how grinding a full container closely matches a full AeroPress. Dumping from the grinder straight into the press is convenient and less spillage than scooping coffee out of a burr.

Also the fact that you can "pop" your grounds with a paper filter straight into the compost.

[1] https://www.amazon.ca/Hario-Ceramic-Coffee-Mill-Mini-Slim/dp...

I don't understand the Aeropress love. I have a good full espresso machine for home. For the office I've tried: electric "mocha express" style Italian espresso maker (great coffee but colleagues complained about the strong smell) and a kettle with both a decent French press or Aeropress.

While I don't mind the Aeropress I have a much better experience with a good old French press - much less chance of mess (stands well, no need to stir with the paddle/a spoon, no risk of putting too much pressure and something falls over).

Tastewise I've tried it with both metal and paper filters and regular and reverse method, as well as different types and grains of coffee - there's no tangible difference to a decent French press. And of course both are far far far away from a proper espresso as you'd expect in a proper Italian or Portuguese café.

The only upside I see is that it's light, so if you do carry something else to boil water it might be a good choice for campaign - but a small french press also is not heavy either. And of course if you go camping with a group a good mocha express to put on the fire makes you the hero of any journey (at the cost of an extra kg).

I'd never seen Moka spelled as Mocha, but it's unsurprising that they come from the same word. Mocha was basically synonymous with coffee for three centuries. What a different world it must have been when a city could completely control the market on it's specialty crop.

Here’s a French map from 1764 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/Bellin_-...

I'm also an espresso fan, and agree that it is no contest between the Aeropress and a proper lever or pump espresso machine.

For camping though, I've used a couple of different moka pots and recently got an Aeropress, and I think the Aeropress is better.

With the moka pot you're sort of crossing your fingers hoping that the tamp and heat are right and the water is getting shoved through the grounds just fast enough to make them expand and make the brew happen, rather than whizzing through or coming out painfully slowly or even blocking up everything so the rest of the water goes out the steam valve.

With the Aeropress (or another similar item I've seen with two arms sticking out), you just shove it through. And for cleanup, you don't have to wait to unscrew two blazing hot metal pieces.

Moka pots are pretty lackluster for making coffee. Some tips that James Hoffmann and others recommend that make it better:

* Put hot water into the basin prior - don't heat up from cold water, the coffee will cook and be bitter if you do.

* Once it starts to pass air through (gurgling) take it off the heat and quench the bottom so the brew stops.

* Don't grind like an espresso - it'll be too fine and overextract.

* I also use an aeropress filter in my 6 cup bialetti and it really reduces the bitterness.

Or just stick with your aeropress, that's what I would do :)

> Tastewise I've tried it with both metal and paper filters and regular and reverse method, as well as different types and grains of coffee - there's no tangible difference to a decent French press. And of course both are far far far away from a proper espresso as you'd expect in a proper Italian or Portuguese café.

I daresay that espresso is a very different style of coffee for people who are used to immersion brews. Espresso drinkers would prefer what they're used to. To each their own.

Most espresso shots end up being sour and unpleasant for me, but I've had a few (most recently, at Pablo & Rusty's in Sydney) that absolutely blew my mind.

> Most espresso shots end up being sour and unpleasant for me

Most are, even in cafes. I didn't realize this at first, and I bought an espresso machine to be more convenient than starbucks. But, it took me at least 2 months of owning an espresso machine before I was able to get the grind, tamp, extraction temperature and extraction time right to pull a good shot consistently. Honestly, it was two months of pain. But, it's been heaven ever since.

I don't mean to be a snob about it, but I used to enjoy starbucks espresso drinks -- not as much anymore. They're slightly bitter or sour most of the time, and once in awhile they're completely undrinkable. I live between two starbucks and I travel a lot, so it's not like it's just one bad location. I still go to starbucks once in awhile, but only if it's for a social reason... not for the coffee. My wife was not convinced at first, but now she agrees that my lattes are better and more consistent than Starbucks.

I think anyone who likes coffee will have the same reaction as you... their mind will be blown when they have a proper shot of espresso and they will probably hate it until that time. So, if you enjoyed it more than coffee, you could take the plunge too. It's like a lot of things though, if you want to do it right you often have to do it yourself.

Similar experience here. I'd say maybe 2% of the cafes around me make pretty average/below average espresso. The ones that do (my favorite ones), are oh so good.

I started delving into espresso and it is both immensely frustrating and immensely rewarding. It's really hard to pull a good shot. But once you do you can't go back.

I have an espresso machine but I use the default settings. What changes have you made to get a better cup?

it depends on the bean, how old it is, the humidity, your machine etc. It'll be hard/impossible to get a great espresso shot from a lot of machines as they just don't have the power. Compound that with the quality of grinder.

Some beans are very forgiving and give a decent espresso with a wide range of parameters. Some beans are very picky on getting the settings right.

I've had a range of machines - and my current machine is the only one that I can get a decent cup from (BES920).

To your question, you need to adjust depending on the output from your machine.

I see. But you basically only tweak grind fineness and amount per cup? or does your machine lets you adjust other parameters?

I find the Aeropress much easier to clean than a French Press. I just pop the grounds and paper into the trash/compost when I'm done and quickly rinse the 3 pieces and my stirrer.

Maybe I'm just bad at cleaning a french press but I always felt it took way more effort.

I also only drink one cup of coffee in the morning so an Aeropress is great. I keep a larger French Press around in case more people want coffee though.

Fill your French press with 3-4 inches of (hot) water and pump it up and down a few times. Most of the grounds will come out of the presser into the liquid. Repeat if needed.

1. No grounds or lipids at all with aeropress, due to the paper filter. Even a good french press will let some grounds into the coffee, and all of the lipids. You can remedy this by popping a paper filter under the plunger, but that's kind of hacked together.

2. You should actually be stirring coffee with a french press as well. If you don't stir with a french press you may as well not stir with an aeropress, they both brew in similar containers.

3. No fine metal parts or glass so it's ideal for hiking, don't have to worry about something shattering in the pack.

4. I prefer the volume and taste of aeropress coffee over espresso or moka pots.

Anyways I'm not saying there's a perfect solution or a right way to prepare coffee. These are just the reasons I like aeropress, even if I do make a lot of french press as well.

In the traditional Indonesian coffee preparation, grounds are a feature, not a bug.

Turkish/Greek coffee as well. Australian coffee is all espresso based (though "hip" cafes also provide pour-over, siphon, cold drip, etc). American coffee from what I gather is mostly just filter.

American coffee was traditionally all filter, and ordering "a coffee" will invariably get you filter coffee, but these days espresso is available and common at every coffee place save the convinience oriented lowest tier.

You can get metal mesh filters for AeroPress. My paper filters have been sitting there for years.

Depends on who you speak to. My French colleagues look at Italian "fast" coffee in horror - they think it's tantamount to abuse of the grounds.

> much less chance of mess

French presses are much more annoying to clean afterwards though. It's nigh impossible to get all of them out of the press without eventually getting some in the sink. I really like that you can just pop the puck of grounds out of the aeropress straight into the compost bin, and what's left on the plunger is almost a paste that can be rinsed off.

The key French press cleaning trick is a _fine_ kitchen sieve, not too small, at least 3" wide:

Pull out the French press plunger, add water and drain the resulting mud through the sieve.

A normal small 2" coffee sieve is too small in diameter, it will clog.

The 3" (4" is better, especially for the larger 1L press) allows the water to pass in a fast pour. And make sure it's a fine sieve, so the grinds stay in.

The grinds mud then goes from the sieve straight to trash.

In store the sieve at the sink with the other cleaning utensils. In direct access storage, so to speak, a local cache even.

Well if there's one thing I hate cleaning more than a French press it's a sieve! Or do you have a sieve specifically for the press? That seems like a good idea.

That’s funny. When I worked with Italians and I wanted them to teach me Italian swear words I’d ask them about French coffee. :D

Personally I like both but mainly drink espresso.

I’ve also got an AeroPress I used for years before I got the espresso maker. I still like it but it’s coffee is nothing like espresso.

why would you take care to NOT get coffee grounds into the sink/drain? Its a feature, the grounds remove some of that fat/etc. that builds up in any kitchen sink/drain.

I myself just wash out my French press with water and let all of that go down the drain, makes it the easiest to clean. Not to mention there is no need for onetime filters like with many other methods (same for Bialettis/espresso maker)

> French press - much less chance of mess

This makes no sense to me. The aeropress is the least messy coffee device I’ve ever used (after use just eject the puck of compressed grounds straight into the compost bin, and if desired give the parts a quick rinse), except maybe for those k-cup machines.

> Tastewise I've tried it with both metal and paper filters and regular and reverse method, as well as different types and grains of coffee - there's no tangible difference to a decent French press.

Taste depends on grind size, water temperature, water-to-coffee ratio, and steep time (and the paper filter).

If you use a very coarse grind and a metal filter, you’ll get approximately the same results with a French press vs. an aeropress.

If you use a very fine grind (or even a medium grind) then the French press does not work because the filter is too coarse (unless you want your coffee to be full of grounds). That takes out a huge part of the available parameter space.

Personally I like steeping very finely ground coffee at moderate water temperature (80–85 °C), for not too much time. I use the paper filters. It is not possible as far as I can tell to obtain similar results with a French press.

I use mine in a similar way and feel the same way you do. It is the least messy way I have used.

And pressing the little puck into the rubbish can is gratifying and fun.

Camping friendly is a serious plus. I have one in my camp trailer. Anytime someone goes with us, I end up making another Aeropress convert.

It is stupid simple, robust, easy, fun.

(Except when you press too enthusiastically and miss the trash can completely)

Been there. Clean up time. When I miss, I miss badly. Broken puck.

Regarding finer grind sizes with the French press, you let it sit. Just wait. Give the press a slight tap at the earliest after 4-5 minutes, so the grinds that floated up to the sieve and that are stuck there with the co2 will also start to sink.

After gently pushing down the plunger give the coffee another minute to let the fines sink down which the push stirred up from the bottom.

The plunger thus rather keeps the sunk grinds and fines down when slowly pouring, it does not filter the coffee.

An excellent cup from the French press takes 5-7 minutes.

It's like French food: best enjoyed slowly.

I can’t imagine this would taste anything like a typical cup of AeroPress, where you can use pressure instead of brew time to extract more flavor. It gives a very different result. The awesome thing about AeroPress is that it’s so easy to experiment with all the parameters: brew time, pressure, water temperature, and different grinds. Fine grind, short brew, high pressure and hot water and you get something more espresso-like. Coarser grind and longer brew time and it’s more like French press.

The aeropress just uses moderate pressure to get the liquid out past the paper filter. You don’t need to push very hard to make it work, and pushing harder doesn’t really accomplish anything. To use an aeropress you mix the coffee grounds into the water (like pour over or French press), you don’t start with a compacted puck of coffee and then force boiling water through it. The pressure involved doesn’t change the flavor. It’s not an espresso machine.

The thing distinguishing the aeropress from pour over or French press is that by using the plunger you can still get water through the filter even with finely ground coffee beans. By using a finer grind, you can extract more flavor from the coffee with less water, lower water temperature, and/or shorter time, and thereby get stronger coffee while avoiding some of the more bitter larger molecules.

Looks like a French Press. But aero.

It kind of looks like it, but really isn't, in function or in result, if you try one out.

I just hate the waste it produces, even if it's "just" paper filters. I use a regular mokka pot, on an induction stove it literally takes <60s to boil, the whole thing is made out of stainless steel so takes 5 seconds to rinse and use again.

fwiw, those paper filters are reusable many times without degradation. Even just using them 2-3 times, you'd be using less than an A4 sheet worth of paper over a month. Does that really move the needle in terms of waste? I mean, we probably throw away many times that on food packaging every day...

They are also compostable.

Yes, and the inventor said he went with paper instead of metal because it tastes better and doesn’t allow sediment into the cup.

Trying both I came to the same conclusion. I reuse a filter ~5 times. Bonus: you don’t need to “burn” the filter every time to remove paper taste, and after a rinse you can just leave it in the filter holder to dry so it’s ready to go immediately.

I was impressed that Aeropress actually recommends reusing the paper filters.

You can buy reusable metal filters for the Aeropress. I use this one with mine and can get a decent espresso shot from it: https://fellowproducts.com/products/prismo

Oh that's pretty cool - had no idea this was a thing!

Gotta call bullshit here, a moka pot does NOT take "5 seconds" to rinse and use again. You have to unscrew it, which is 5 seconds, by itself, not counting the time to protect your hands from the heat. Then you have to disassemble, empty coffee grounds into the trash, then rinse 4 separate areas of 3 separate pieces, then fill with coffee again and re-assemble.

It's a minimum of a full minute even if you are Commander Data. Be real.

Sure, 60 seconds then. I put the moka pot under cold water, unscrew the bottom, rinse the grinds out, and rinse the grinds tray. Done. There's no need to rinse the top part(the one where coffee goes) or the bottom one(where the cold water is). I give it a wash every now and then. Maybe it's not 5 seconds but it's very very quick, I can definitely prepare multiple cups of coffee in quick succession(especially since one pot easily makes enough strong coffee brew to make 2 cups out if it if you add boiling water).

I have an AeroPress and like it a lot, but I also love making a pour over every morning precisely for the process (and taste). Bringing the water to the right temperature, weighing and grinding the beans, blooming, managing the flow rate… the ritual is very calming.

The Aeropress makes it so that I can take half the materials that go into a crap-ass urn of coffee and turn them into a kick-ass cup of coffee at work. Godsend. I have a 3rd party metal filter, so I don’t have to worry about running out of the paper filters.

metal filters aren't as effective at removing certain oils as paper, but are good enough to separate out the grounds.

Do you want oils removed?

Very much a personal preference / tastes may vary for of thing. If you're used to French press, you'll be used to the oils being part of the taste/mouthfeel experience of coffee, whereas coming from pourover (or the conventional batch brewers that dominate commercial or non-enthusiast home markets) some find them off-putting.

No right or wrong answer.

I enjoy the tedium of pour over coffee. It is just a nice ritual and forces me into a different state of beeing for a minute or two. A bit like when taking a shower this sometimes turns out to be one of the moments where the best ideas happen.

Beeing unefficient and requiring attention can be a feature and not a bug if you embrace it.

It's just meditation by doing.

I recommend blooming in the AeroPress, not only does it slightly improve the coffee, but you're less likely to get a large frothy head on the top taking up space. It only takes an extra 30 seconds or so thanks to the small diameter.

Different brewing methods taste different. French press tastes different than a pourover. An Aeropress tastes different than a moka pot. I couldn't help but groan at the idea that a tool 'brews the best cup of coffee in the world' . The coffee the various tools produce simply taste different and they have different usecases. Not better or worse, just different.

To brew "the best" which means really to get the best extraction out of the bean for which the flavor profile the drinker enjoys the most (too much extraction results in a acidic, heavy taste, too little extraction results in the dreaded "mud water" light taste)

I've tried them all. The aeropress simply enables you to brew the most consistent cup to your liking, plus all the other benefits Steltek pointed out.

Shouldn’t that be “the aeropress simply allows me to brew the most consistent cup to my liking”? Taste is highly subjective, after all.

> too much extraction results in a acidic, heavy taste, too little extraction results in the dreaded "mud water" light taste

It's actually the opposite. Over extraction results in more prominent bitter flavors and under extraction in more prominent sour flavors.

A mocha express style Italian coffee maker is super consistent in quality and (for my taste) gives much better flavour. The steam method takes out much of the bitterness compared to a poured coffee like Aeropress.

I think that depends more on the beans. Good light roast beans don't need to worry so much about masking bitterness. If modern craft light roast is not your preference, you will need to care more about bitterness. (NB: Not all coffee labeled light roast is)

And if you really want the flavor of a naturally bitter roast without the bitterness, there's always Chemex. Never my first choice for brewing coffee I actually like, but I have gotten a decent cup out of roasts I usually find unpalatable.

Shorter brewing time lesds to more acidic coffee. Longer brewing time leads to bitter coffee.

Thanks, I mixed those up. Minor details aside, the larger point was, in order to brew "your best" cup of coffee, you need consistency in the brewing method with the least amount of variables (save the other important variables such as quality of bean, roast profile, water composition, water temp, etc). The aeropress gives you that.

I used to swear by my French Press. Some two years ago I casually said to my sibling that I wanted to try AeroPress to see what the fuss is all about. One day it showed up as a present in my mailbox.

I opened it, ridiculing it, thinking I'll give it a single try, toss it in the closet and get back to my French Press.

Fast forward two years: Almost every weekday morning I start with a full AeroPress. And each morning I used to shake my head with the same surprise as I ground the beans[+]: "I still can't believe this plastic thing can produce such good coffee." It's the French Press now that's gathering dust in the closet.

To my brain, AeroPress == French Press minus the "fine sludge".

[+] FWIW, I use "Mano Mano" by the Belgian coffee roaster, Café Liégeois (not associated with them, just a happy user)—https://cafe-liegeois.com/en/cafes/mano-mano-puissant

I actually enjoy the bits of coffee bean in french press coffee. Same as with turkish coffee which I also enjoy. Kind of like the coffee equivalent to a “rustic” bread. It’s not something I use every day, but when I do I look forward to it.

AeroPress doesn't really scale for company, though. I remember trying to make several cups in a row for family and by the time cup #3 was finished, cup #1 was cold.

I do still whip out my AeroPress from time to time if I'm making a really fruity coffee, because I feel like the AP method is better at extracting those flavors. But for my usual morning cup for myself and my significant other, French Press is king.

> To my brain, AeroPress == French Press minus the "fine sludge".

I haven't really noticed "the sludge" in my FP since I invested in a Barata Encore canonical burr grinder. It's able to grind the beans coarsely and evenly enough that you don't get the sludge (which is usually the unevenly-ground fines that slip past the mesh filter). Additionally, paper filters trap the coffee bean fines, but they also trap the oil, which is desirable in your coffee.

But I will concede that the AP is probably the most affordable option for a good cup of coffee. You can pair it with a cheap blade grinder and still get a decent cup out of it, while poorly-ground coffee in a FP can make for a "sludgy" cup.

Curious: I have an Encore and I still get a bit of fine sludge. I'm grinding on about 21. What setting are you using?

21 for a French Press? That's way too fine. Barzata's own site suggests at least 28:

https://baratza.com/grinding-tips/

I personally have it around 32-33. I don't remember if I got that from their manual or from somewhere online, but I haven't noticed any degradation in flavor from the larger grind. The whole point of investing in a quality burr grinder is being able to get a proper coarse grind; make use of it!

EDIT: A separate Reddit post (though by no means authoritative) agrees with my recommendation of above 30 for FP:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Coffee/comments/1k0uhb/is_there_a_c...

Yeah, I assumed that a quality burr grinder is more important for fine grinds than coarse; I guess that's probably not true. I'll give it a shot, thanks.

I've only been using the french press more now because my home office is upstairs, and the Clever Dripper stays in the kitchen. With the press I can bring it up with me and save 4 whole minutes in my 'commute' :-)

To clarify, a good burr grinder is also good for fines. You can set the Encore somewhere between 2-6 and make your own Turkish coffee grind using whatever beans you've got lying around, rather than paying for a can of pre-ground Turkish coffee that's probably been on the shelf for months already.

I hear you, on not scaling it for a family. I make it for one or two people at most (a full AeroPress can be shared for two, unless you're a Real Guzzler).

I mulled about the burr grinder in the past, but then I already had the Bosch blade grinder[+]. It does the job spectacularly well for most use cases. I live in a small apartment; and minimize 'nice-to-have' devices. (And given the predicament we're immersed in, I feel even more disinclined to buy more 'things' that I don't really need. One day, I might get the burr grinder as a 'reward' for all the discipline I show in most aspects, or some other justification that I can coax myself with. :-))

As for coarseness, I'm living with a "workaround": 12 pulses (manual on-and-off; yeah, annoying) with the blade grinder to get the right coarseness for French Press, which is now a "weekend delight".

[+] https://www.bosch-home.com/ne/product-list/coffee-machines/c...

If you're gonna go for the pulse method with a blade grinder, the recommendation is that you should also shake the grinder between pulses. See below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wS8igZyhNFw

Oh, thanks for bothering to give that pointer; didn't know that.

I'm the same way, it's been 5 years of using it daily and I still look forward to using my Aero Press every morning. If you haven't yet, please do yourself a favor and try the "reverse Aeropress" method. It makes a slightly stronger amount of coffee, about half a mug's worth.

I think you mean inverted method? I would not recommend it though. The risk of spills is too high (it will fall over at some point), and there are simpler ways to brew with more consistent (and IMO better) results.

Here is a technique I have developed after many years of almost daily brewing. I call it the "30-30-30" (anyone get the reference?), but each step has a lot of room for variance, no timer necessary.

* Mount the AeroPress on a 3dl mug and add ~17g of medium-coarse freshly ground coffee.

* Add 20-30g of hot water to let it "bloom", which releases CO2 and other gases trapped in the beans from the roasting process. Leave it for 15-30 seconds until most bubbles have popped (if any). Very fresh beans should bloom longer.

* Pour water up to just above the 4 mark. I like to spin the AeroPress while pouring to stir it, but you can also pour in circles like a pour-over. Try to make it foamy by having the water break just before it hits.

* Let it drip for ~30s (or until the water level is just above the 3 mark).

* Slowly plunge for another 20-30s.

That's it! The water temperature should be between 85 and 95 °C; any hotter will burn the grounds and lower temperatures won't be able to extract as much flavour.

In my experience that is way too much water

Ah, didn't know the "reverse AeroPress" method makes a stronger cup. And indeed haven't yet tried it yet; although I've seen it online. I keep meaning to try it, but when I wake up about 7, my bleary-eyed self goes, "nope, you're more likely to mess up with the inverse method; normal way it is". I'll try it sometime in the afternoon.

Thanks for the reminder.

Related from a few weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22493376

OP discussed in 2018: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18474815

OP discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7615399

Related from 2015: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9381315

Also 2015: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9214571

I think that covers the major AeroPress bases.

Plastic + hot liquids still make me nervous

I'm in the same boat and I roll with a Chemex at home.

I was worried about that initially, but the plastic is sufficiently robust (I have to say, my AeroPress got a bit chipped at the top when it fell from my hand as I was cleaning).

I'm still wondering if a glass-based, non-plastic variant of AeroPress will show up any time soon.

I've really hoped that a stainless vacuum-sealed thermos-type tube could be created to replace the main chamber. It should be to handle and clean.

I have long-considered the Espro Travel Press to be the Aeropress's metal cousin: https://www.espro.com/catalog/french-press/coffee-travel-pre...

The espro ends up being more bitter, though. I can't say why, maybe it shouldn't be, but it is.

Bitterness is overextraction, which involves tweaking either grind size (extraction speed) and/or brew time (extraction duration), and of course whether you press the Espro, and consume from the vessel (spent grind still impacting flavor) versus pouring brew into a separate mug.

edit: It should also be mentioned, since AP is a relatively unconventional approach to coffee prep, it has evolved over time that many prefer to brew in the AP at significantly lower temperatures than other methods. AP instructions even suggest a 176F brew temperature, which when followed makes it more challenging to get bitter overextractions, when grind size and brew time are maintained. Consistency is a major attribute to AP.

Using a metal filter i quickly got visible fissures in the plastic. No actual leakage yet.

I've been using metal filters many times a day for years to no ill effect.

Years ago now, there were reports of visible fracturing like you describe, and Alan said to call in to Aeropress and they will replace these versions. Worth a try, even today.

Glass seems really dangerous considering how much pressure there can be inside the Aeropress at times.

Glass is way to dangerous for an AeroPress. Metal could be a way to go.

Two of the most common types of plastic are low-density and high-density polyethylene (LDPE and HDPE).

LDPE is cheap and flexible so is really common, especially for things like packaging. It also deforms near the boiling point of water. If you've had a bad experience like a plastic container melting in the dishwasher, or a soda bottle shriveling when filled with hot water, it was probably LDPE.

But there are other plastics like HDPE and polypropylene which are perfectly fine at 100°C. If you're using a plastic product designed for use with hot liquids (like nalgene or aeropress) it will be made of these materials.

I still felt nervous the first few times putting boiling water into a nalgene bottle...

The aeropress cylinder is made of polypropylene, and the plunger is silicone, https://aeropress.com/use-it-now/evolution-of-aeropress/

I suspect that the stirring stick, filter cap, and funnel are made of HDPE.

If you’re an espresso drinker and are looking for something that makes a frankly excellent little shot of coffee and is comparably (with the AeroPress) low-fuss and low-maintenance, I bought a handpresso (https://www.handpresso.com/en/) a couple months back for an overseas trip but was so happy with it that it’s now my daily driver.

That looks cool.

I have two nanopressos which are also very good. One for home and one for work.

https://www.wacaco.com/pages/nanopresso

I can second the nanopresso, I also recommend the barista kit for the bigger coffee basket:

https://www.wacaco.com/products/barista-kit

Yeah I cross-shopped that - it looks good too. The wacaco and the handpresso seem to dominate the travel espresso segment.

A friend of mine - a fellow Melburnian - has the Rok espresso maker (https://www.rok.coffee/), which is a large-ish countertop manual espresso device. He reckons he’s pulled over 10,000 shots with it and swears by it. Also low-fuss, low-maintenance and just a couple hundred bucks.

Oh that's cool. Thanks for posting that.

I have an AeroPress, a french press, and a Clever Dripper.

While I like the AeroPress, I don't find it makes enough coffee in one go. The Clever Dripper is basically a french press with a #4 filter, so you still get a filtered cup - no sludge (you do miss out on the oils though). It's a foolproof method to a great cup of coffee.

Were you inspired to post this after watching the Bon Appétit test kitchen work-from-home coffee video?

When my last espresso machine died I switched to the AeroPress as a temporary replacement. It didn't take long before I realized I didn't need to buy another espresso machine.

Curious what kind of espresso machine you had?

Aeropress is great but doesn't come anywhere near a good pulled espresso shot for me - in any capacity.

Hey, I just made a 3d model / animation of an AeroPress in Blender! I put it on GitHub under a Creative Commons License (obviously I didn't use the brand name), so feel free to use it if you have a need for a model of an AeroPress for some reason.

https://github.com/bxbrenden/Blender-CoffeePress

I recently watched the AeroPress Movie (https://aeropressmovie.com/), which was a fun look into the history and culture around the AeroPress. Something I enjoyed about it was seeing the inventors workshop in his garage, as well as his opinions on what constitutes a "good cup" of coffee.

Interesting. I've not watched the movie but I disagree with the inventor on the type of coffee he tries to make with the Aeropress.

From what I recall he tries to make a more "espresso" style coffee and then dilute it. I prefer to just go 15g coffee to 250g of water for a single normal cup. No dilution.

yeah, he also doesn't steep, but I find that you need to steep for a few minutes unless you want to under extract your beans.

I also greatly prefer a metal filter over paper as it lets more flavor through, but people who don't like flavor call that "acidity" or "bitterness". ️

What happened to Priceonomics? They used to regularly publish great content that I'd often see on the front page here. Is their business dying or are they just no longer prioritizing content marketing (or maybe targeting different people)?

Did you notice that this article is from 2014?

Maybe I misunderstood whether the OP was referring to this particular article as 'content marketing'.

They pivoted their business model a few times, and now do data content writing for other companies.

The fascinating Priconomics deep dives that I used to look forward to don't pay as well as advertorials like "5G Is 200X Faster and Will Unlock Everything" and "Which Industries Will Be Transformed By Blockchain".

I noticed a bunch of typos (it's, Alder, jo), am about 4/5 through.

I use my AeroPress for Yerba Mate exclusively. Two spoons of Yerba Mate for one cup, add 90C° water, put in plunger on top and let it steep for 5 minutes. It stretches the Yerba Mate and it is easy to clean.

Apparently Mate might cause cancer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yerba_mate#Cancer

Last I checked, the evidence was unclear whether it's the mate or the temperature it's consumed at. Which is weird to be because I thought mate was brewed at lower temperature compared to coffee (70°C). Either way, the WHO recommends you don't take your beverages too hot:

https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/94/8/16-010816/en/

Drinking alcohol increases the risk of mouth cancer, pharyngeal (upper throat) cancer, oesophageal (food pipe) cancer, laryngeal (voice box) cancer, breast cancer, bowel cancer and liver cancer.

But that doesn't really seem to slow anyone down.

Sure, but assuming the mate drinkers are also drinking alcohol, it may have a synergistic effect and increase risk much beyond either alone, like tobacco and alcohol do with each other. Pure speculation though.

I have an AeroPress. I have a few different french-press mugs. I have a disc you place over a much, with a little fabric pouch in the middle for the grounds, and then pour in the hot water. (They're all convenient in different scenarios.)

I can honestly say that I never notice any taste difference (assuming I'm using the same beans). I don't doubt many people can taste the difference, and it's a big deal for them. But I also think there are many people who, like me, honestly don't taste much of a difference.

> “What do you guys do when you just want one cup of coffee?” Adler had wondered this many times himself. He’d grown increasingly frustrated with his coffee maker, which yielded 6-8 cups per brew.

Why can’t you put just enough water and coffee in a standard coffee maker to make only one cup? My coffee maker came with a manual that said, “Always make a full pot”, but I never understood the reasoning behind that. (And admittedly never tried making just one cup to see what happens.)

I love my aeropress but it is not even close to the best cup of coffee in the world

Hmmm. Perhaps not the _world_, but if you can’t make a cup that is in at least your personal top 10, you need adjust process and/or ingredients.

I can cover a pretty wide range of my personal tastes - from syrupy espresso-like to smoky diner style to super crisp and light pour over style.

> I can cover a pretty wide range of my personal tastes - from syrupy espresso-like to smoky diner style to super crisp and light pour over style.

Is this all from your AeroPress?

I find that a lot of the "range" I'm getting comes from obtaining beans from a variety of regions and roast levels. I can't figure out how to switch things around on the process level — but I almost always do the inverted method.

Yes for sure all from AeroPress. So many knobs to turn. Aside from the obvious variables like quality and quantity of beans and water, the following have HUGE effects:

- coarseness of the grind

- water temp

- bloom time

- steep time

- length and pressure of the extraction(the ‘press’)

Checkout some award-winning recipes to get a feel for all the different techniques.

From looking at some of those recipes Aeropress looks more like a cult than a way of brewing coffee. Instructions on exact seconds to wait for the water to cool or how many times to turn the spoon... I don't doubt that this influences the coffee but I doubt that any mortal human can taste the difference between s coffee stirred 3 or 4 full rounds.

No doubt there are always extremists!

Imagine if in the programming world people bickered about things that had no affect in performance or functionality - say like whitespace or which text editor to use

I don't think I could hit my top 10 - there are a lot of very good coffee shops around me and I'm not that enthusiastic about coffee. However, top 10 is also not my goal for making coffee at home. I'm just aiming for good enough to enjoy drinking it, and also caffeine.

I've been trying cold brewing my coffee lately, and I'm liking it a lot. No warm cup in the morning, but it tastes good and I can make it in large batches over the weekend. Grind and mix in the morning, filter and store in the evening. Also, it requires minimal attention on workdays and still tastes fine at the end of the week.

What would you rank above it? I'm far from a coffee snob, however moving in with someone who is one I've come to like our aeropress even though imo it's a lot of work for a cup of joe.

Not the parent, but since I moved there is a really good local brand of organic instant coffee (generic grocery store chain). I no longer use my AeroPress because there aren't any good sources of coffee beans near me.

In Europe most will bet on a proper espresso machine or else a mocha express style espresso maker. Espresso has more flavour, less bitterness and a tiny bit less caffeine; for me it brings out the pure coffee flavour in a small punch. Served in good cafes with a glass of water.

It’s fascinating how much this has to do with personal preferences and cultural fashion. When I lived in Europe I would always make an effort to find the third wave coffeehouses that focused on aeropress and pour over preparations so I could enjoy the light-roasted subtleties and terroir of the different beans. It made coffee more like wine or microbrews. These places usually had a younger more international crowd and were frequently run by Australians or Kiwis.

I find the dark espresso roasts produce a more consistent product but only because a whole range of flavours is missing. But different strokes for different folks.

The best cup of coffee is the coffee you like!

There is a lot of "third wave" espresso out there now which you may like more, not quite as traditional as what you may have found in Europe.

There isn’t really such a thing as an “espresso roast”. Espresso is a description of the extraction method not the beans.

Traditionally espresso is made with a medium roast not dark roasted beans.

This Christmas I was given a bag of Starbucks “Espresso Roast” beans as a stocking filler. To me they just taste burnt compared to a decent medium. Not something I would buy through choice.

Also not a personal fan of third wave light or green roasts. I find them too acidic for my pallet.

All personal preference but give me a decent medium roast double espresso at right grind size and I’m in heaven.

Great shops with great baristas can still outdo my AeroPress with their pour-over, but not many.

I am terribly lazy and have completely given up on quality coffee. I drink medaglia d'oro instant espresso and find it does the job without consuming too much time or counter space.

Why not just take caffeine pills at this point?

There is comfort to be had in the habit of drinking a big mug of a hot drink, caffeinated or not. I drink coffee for that as much as anything else, and given the popularity of decaf coffee so do many others...

Coffee tastes good and contains beneficial compounds like quercetin and phenylindane.

As someone who enjoys good coffee, I still think cheap shitty coffee is better than bad (here meaning anything I don't like) craft coffee. It tends toward muted flavors rather than anything actively unenjoyable. If I don't like the roast in a quality cup of coffee, all of those flavors I don't like will be front and center.

Caffeine pills are great in the morning if you want a precise dose consistently

My wife has a super expensive espresso machine.

It makes her a great cup of coffee.

I use my aeropress, exclusively.

Can anyone recommend an electric grinder for this thing? Tempted to try it.

Baratza Encore

I'm not sure you need any particular grinder, I've used everything from ultra fine ground to very course grinds and it works fine with anything.

I found that grind in an AeroPress is not as critical as for an espresso machine where you use it to tune pressure towards 9 bar.

Having said that I’d say get a conical bur grinder and not a cheap bladed one. Less bothered about brand myself.

With the bladed grinder you measure the coffee volume in beans then set the grind size by the time you run the machine.

On a bur grinder you can set the grind size with a dial and use the timer to measure the volume of coffee.

Much more repeatable and hence easier to tweak one way or the other.

A bit late but I use the OXO brew conical burr on its "fine" setting. It looks nice, works reliably, has good ergonomics, and doesn't get messy. Also runs the full gamut of grind sizes so we can use it with our french press and chemex too.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07CSKGLMM

I used one for a while years ago. Ultimately it's too fiddly to brew with, and it doesn't make enough coffee for me (I like 12-16 oz). I settled on a french press, even though the AeroPress does makes nicer coffee, and is easier to clean. But the french press is much simpler, an important consideration in the part of the morning when you pretty much by definition have not yet had any coffee.

I don't own a Chemex or other pour-over brewer, but I would put them above the AeroPress. They're less fiddly to brew with, can produce more coffee, the quality is very similar (imo), and cleanup is not much worse.

I used a french press for years but finally got fed up with the difficulty of cleaning it, primarily due to the rough edge of the screen/filter. I got a basic pour-over brewer a couple of years ago and while it is arguably more labor to work with (and I have to buy filters, I really should look for a long use filter, but then I would have to clean that) the simpler cleanup seems worth it.

I can't really claim to be able to taste a difference in the methods, variations in the coffee I choose, the cream, how much sugar I use, all seem to drown out any difference due to brewing method.

french presses, drippers, and the like can just be rinsed after every use (to remove spent grounds mainly) and washed every once in a while.

i've been using a clever dripper lately as it's easy to use and rinse, and produces good coffee (similar to a french press).

friends who have the aeropress really like it, but it seems to me to be more work for marginal benefit (especially if you like cream and sugar =).

My morning ritual is a 20oz cup with an AeroPress.

Takes me 7 minutes total including grinding the beans.

Would you mind expounding on your steps/timing?

VERY roughly:

- bring a full Bonavita kettle to 205f

- hand grind 16-20g beans to roughly ‘beach sand’

- bloom For 25 seconds by while slowly pouring and simultaneously agitating

- fill to the top with water

- start a 25-45 second extraction at the 110 second mark

- top off the 20oz porcelain cup with water (by this time it has cooled to around 195f)

- push out the puck and rinse

I use the inverted method.

I also use a hand grinder because, uh, I sorta like the meditative aspect of it. And I do think you can get a higher quality grind for cheaper with manual grinders. I’m not willing to spend the hundreds on a nice electric.

Maybe I’ll do a video of this process at some point!

Ooh, what's your ritual?

Not to brag but I've got my perfect cup down to 2 minutes including cleanup:

- Kettle emptied, filled and on (10 seconds)

- Oat milk into frother (10 seconds)

- Grind beans - electric grinder on medium size, 2 scoops (1 second, a mere button push)

- prep Aeropress with filter (10 seconds)

- grounds into Aeropress (a delicate operation, 20 seconds)

- Kettle has boiled, stopwatch started and water up to Mark 3 (5 seconds)

- Stir grounds (not on critical path)

- When stopwatch reads 25 seconds, plunge over course of 5 seconds

- Empty Aeropress and rinse it (5 seconds)

- Pour frothed oat milk (5 seconds)

- Rinse milk frother (15-20 seconds)

This is results in a very delicious latte, the best method I've found so far and also amazingly quick!

I love your description, but want to add one heresy.

I use a microwave to heat the water. Where I live, my tap water is a pretty consistent temperature, so I can use a consistent time on the microwave to hit the right sub-boiling temp every time. 1:50 in spring to fall, 2:00 in winter.

There's no way pour over is less fiddly than an AeroPress. Timing blooms, gooseneck kettle only so you can gently apply water evenly, and having to sit the whole thing on a scale so you can measure how much water you've really added.

If you aren't doing any of that for the Aeropress (which you "should") I'm not sure why you think you need to do the same for a pourover. You can just experiment and eyeball it like you do for the Aeropress

Coffee rituals are a mixed bag of "truths" and preferences. Here's why I believe AP doesn't need those things and a pour over does:

Blooming is mostly to remove gas pockets from the bed of coffee so water can reach all of the grounds evenly for the actual brew. This makes a lot of sense for a PO, where water is quickly passing through, but less so for immersion techniques like AP.

AP doesn't need a specialty kettle. Just use the same funnel for the coffee grounds to pour in the water and you can be as rough as you want. I still use a gooseneck but that's mostly because they're smaller and take up less countertop space.

Water/coffee ratio is easy for an inverted AP. Water isn't leaving the cylinder until you plunge so you just pour up to the mark, however you please. For PO, you have the double whammy of refilling the cone with water and having the water almost immediately start draining out into the cup.

I make pour over the very first thing early in the morning, usually while an 8 month old baby is crawling around chaotically. I just put the ceramic dripper on my mug, pour a bit of water for the bloom without "timing" it, then pour some more like three times until the mug is full. Yeah I use a gooseneck kettle (which btw also comes in handy for watering flowers and filling up the clothes iron) but I'm not fussy about technique. Occasionally I just dump a bunch of water in the filter at once and the coffee turns out fine if a bit weak.

I have a Chemex three cup and I can make one or two cups with it without any timer or scale. It tastes great to me and is really consistent. The need for scientific exactness is overblown here (although using a scale and timer only helps the result). Even a bad brew from my chemex with freshly roasted single origin beans is far better than the terrible black coffee I drank at the office for years (and still will drink if it’s all that’s available)

Hm? Pour-over is practically an artform. You have to stand over the chemex, pace the pour very carefully, watch the bloom, continue to grow the bloom for two or three minutes… pour-over is absolutely the best coffee and also the most labor-intensive.

Aeropress: pour, wait, push. Maybe 85% as good as pour over and massively better than french press, percolator, or drip.

You and parent are in agreement.

I know it's technically less precise, but I just go by volume measurements, and use a measuring cup to measure water/pour. And bloom periods are easy to figure out visually, has the water started to all sink away and the coffee stopped bubbling? Time to start adding more water.

Yeah, I love Aeropress coffee but after burning myself while using the inverted method I've resolved to using Kalita Wave at work and Chemex at home.

I do sometimes miss the flexibility of the Aeropress, especially doing 15 minute brews with really coarse grounds to bring out some unique flavour, but I make up for it with better beans nowadays.

The inverted method is needlessly complex. Use the unit normally. Fill it with coffee and water. Insert the plunger but don't press down. It makes a seal, and the seal prevents coffee from dripping out. It's like holding your finger over a straw. Sure, a few drips might make it through, but probably you will be able to trap 95% of the brew.

Also alleviated by this 'gismo', named Prismo: https://fellowproducts.com/products/prismo

> The inverted method is needlessly complex.

How is it needlessly complex? I do it everyday, and it seems more "natural" in making a full immersion brew, compared to the normal method which doesn't let you stir once you insert the plunger.

Do you really need to stir after you insert the plunger? I sometimes wiggle the aeropress a bit too break the crust in top.

This is exactly what I do. Or just give the plunger a tug upwards to create a bit of back-pressure. Keeps the water in the tube until you plunge.

Huh. I use an AeroPress because it is much less fiddly than a pour-over, and makes much better coffee and easier to clean than a french press. Also I find the smaller-batches to be a plus because I don't want to be finishing a room-temperature pot in two hours.

Clean up with my pour over: Dump filter in compost. Rinse under sink quickly. Done.

I thought the idea was that you fill it up as much as it can go, but the small amount of water makes a stronger cup so you add the rest of your hot water directly to dilute it to desired strength.

hot water + plastic = bad

https://aeropress.com/use-it-now/evolution-of-aeropress/

edit confession: I have collected all versions, save for the new red one.

Based on what? If the plastic has no BPA in it, what's the issue?

There's a lot more in our products, our packaging, in our food and water supply that's potentially harmful but "technically unproven to cause harm." Do some research into BPA and you'll find there are several other BPx's in use now, each with their own problematic potential for endocrine disruption, that still allow the manufacturers to say "BPA Free!!"

Also every thermal paper receipt you touch is covered in BPA.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2018/09/news-BPA-...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222987/

Plastics have a much lower solubility constant than glass. There's no reason to use plastic when you can use glass

IMO we shouldn't allow inventions such as AeroPress to have exclusive rights to produce it by enforcing Patent laws. The idea of Patents was to encourage entrepreneurs to invent, but the consumers get shafted by increased price and no competition. AeroPress is an extremely simple invention, patented to the brim and they spend a ton of money defending their patents. This expenditure gets passed to the consumer with a $40 price tag for something that costs $2 to make.

Inventions are not special. Providing value to the user by out competing others either by price, quality, customer service, etc. is a win for the customer.

Products such as AeroPress, Frisbee, Rubik's cube, etc. leave a bad after taste as a consumer. AeroPress has no incentive to improve their product because of the lack of competition.

AeroPress should get a 2 year headstart. After the 2 years, their patent expires and they gotta actually compete with others. What if the Chinese start making these for $1.50? We should have a labor quotient - if country X imports from country Y, country X should charge import duty that is proportional to the labor quotient exactly to counter balance the higher labor cost in country X.

I am interested in counter arguments, what are the benefits to the society as a whole when we have exclusive production rights to inventions?

How does a person outside the system compete or move up at all then? Sell immediately to someone who owns the means of production?

I don't disagree with your thoughts about patents, but I also don't know how to protect regular folks.

> The idea of Patents was to encourage entrepreneurs to invent, but the consumers get shafted by increased price and no competition

For a limited time, that premium is imposed; that's where the incentive comes from.

> Products such as AeroPress, Frisbee, Rubik's cube, etc. leave a bad after taste as a consumer.

Two of those are long out of patent protection. (Well, in Frisbee's case at least on the base design, new innovations may be still be covered.)

> AeroPress should get a 2 year headstart.

So you have no problem with the idea of patents, you just want to reconsider the duration of either patents in general or patents in some particular subfields?

> We should have a labor quotient - if country X imports from country Y, country X should charge import duty that is proportional to the labor quotient exactly to counter balance the higher labor cost in country X.

Is this average labor cost per hour or industry-specific labor cost per unit delivered or something else?

I suspect once you decide this, you'll see a whole set of unintended consequences...

Just look at what already happens to people on Kickstarter, they spend years and all this money, their own and others, designing, testing, figuring out the market and ultimately manufacturing just to have the Chinese manufacturer or another one steal the idea and sell it for cheaper, often before the actual product is released. Now imagine this happening to every inventor in your country.

But what about this import idea? How are you going to enforce it, figure it out, and actually handle or stop people trying to go around it? You'd need like 100k new government workers dealing with this.

There’s also an imbalance here in that China is not an open marker to firms in the West.

Chinese copiers have the ability to sell into their own massive market and then cross subsidise to dump cheaper products into the rest of the world.

No company in for example the West using, say, robots to reduce labour costs could dump cheap imitations into the Chinese market to destroy their manufacturing base.

Same goes for service companies.

This asymmetric aspect of Chinese trade has to stop.

> What if the Chinese start making these for $1.50?

The Aeropress is very cheap. If you use an Aeropress 1 time per day for 4 years, the amortized cost of an Aeropress is 3 cents per cup of coffee. That’s only a small fraction of the price of the coffee beans, and also much cheaper than a decent electric coffee grinder.

Alternately, the Aeropress pays for itself if you use it daily for a week or two instead of going to a café.

Even if the Chinese knockoff were free, it wouldn’t save you any appreciable amount of money in the long term.

> consumers get shafted by increased price and no competition

The design is extremely simple and robust, and the device does exactly what it is supposed to. I don’t see why we need competition to improve it.

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