AeroPress Travel Drip Coffee

The AeroPress steeps coffee in a small chamber and then presses it through a paper microfilter with air pressure. Quick and hard to ruin, it makes a clean, smooth cup with little bitterness or acidity.

Origin & Story

The AeroPress was invented by Alan Adler, the engineer behind the Aerobie flying ring. He began prototyping it in his garage in 2004, spent two years and more than thirty prototypes on it, and introduced it at Coffee Fest Seattle in November 2005.

It is a simple thing: a cylindrical chamber, a plunger with an airtight silicone seal, and a screw-on cap that holds a paper or mesh filter. Coffee and water steep in the chamber, and pressing the plunger forces the coffee through the filter into your cup. Adler wanted to cut the acidity and bitterness in his own daily cup, and to have control over brew time, water temperature and grind.

That control is why it became a favorite with baristas, and why there is a World AeroPress Championship, where competitors present their own recipes. There are two ways to use it: the standard method, with the chamber sitting on the cup, and the inverted method, with the plunger at the bottom so that nothing drips through while the coffee steeps.

The recipe here is a short, simple one. Use 15 g of medium-fine coffee and 220 g of water at 85°C, a little cooler than boiling, which keeps the sweetness forward. Stir, steep for about a minute and a half, then press gently over about 30 seconds. The result is clean and sweet, with a crisp finish.

Reading the Flavor Profile

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