Hacker News Reader

Comment by deckiedan | Hacker News Reader

I've been using an AeroPress almost every day for over 3 years, and love them.

I've had only one issue with them, in that the inside has become scratched and discoloured, which somehow messes up the taste as well (after about 2 years use).

A totally worth-while purchase. I'm now on my second one, hopefully this lasts longer, but if not, I'll just buy another one in a couple years.

One thing I like is how manual the process is - I can make a much weaker cup of coffee for guests who don't like it so strong without it becoming bitter. For different types of coffee, I can brew it in different ways.

And it's odd, but even cheap pre-ground supermarket coffee tastes hugely nicer with the AP. These days, I buy pretty much whichever the cheapest fairtrade coffeebeans the supermarket has, and grind enough for each cup, and it tastes great.

View on HN

I been using an Aeropress daily for 2.5 years and even with scratches I haven't noticed a difference to brand new ones (I own several). What colour is your brewer? If it's clear with a blue tint, then it might be due to plastic they used to use. Few years back they switched to more brown coloured plastic as there was some issues with the old plastic they used (I don't know the details).

Yeah, my first one was a clear/blueish plastic one, the new one is a tinted brown. I'm hoping it's that. :-)

> And it's odd, but even cheap pre-ground supermarket coffee tastes hugely nicer with the AP.

I'll second that, with the AP even decaf folger's will brew a cup that I really enjoy.

At the risk of sounding insane, sometimes my biggest motivation to stop working and go to sleep at night is that I can have a cup of coffee in the morning. I actually just confided that fact to my wife, and she empathized, so either we're both insane or it does indeed make very good coffee.

I hadn't noticed the scratches affecting the taste on my unit (now 3 years old). But it could also just be the coffee flavor leeching into the plastic over time.

I find that with drip coffee, it's much harder to tell the difference between bean varieties and burr ground vs conical. The AP brings out the flavor as intensely as you can stand.

How do you feel about it compared to a Chemex, which is what I used when I drank more coffee and less tea (now I'm the other way around, in part due to this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1934051).

They're pretty close in my book (have been using the AeroPress for ~1 yr and the chemex for a few months). The chemex is a bit easier if I want several cups at a time.

yeah, I'll have to test it out; I use a pour over funnel similar to this, a hario something or other. I like it a lot better than the bog standard bodum press.

I've never used an actual Chemex, but I do quite like other pour-over coffee makers. They're convenient, and much more controllable than auto machines.

I find that areopress tends to make cleaner coffee - if that makes sense - and that the flavours come out more. Especially certain kinds of coffee it's nice to let them brew longer - french press / cafetiere style. The areopress can do that easily (inverted style), but the pour-over ones can't.

If you want, you can use an areopress pretty similarly to a pour-over, by simply not pushing down the plunger and letting gravity pull the water through.

Possible delta: UV exposure will yellow plastic. Has it been in direct sunlight?

Not really - a little while in the drying rack, maybe. It seems to be all inside the tube, which would seem so indicate something to do with the hot water, or something. I wondered if it were the water being too hot - but figure that that can't be it, as the top part, which I put water into first from the kettle to cool down to 80 deg, isn't cracked or scratched at all. I'm hoping its just a one off issue.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com