AeroPress
The AeroPress is a hand-powered brewer. Coffee and hot water mix in a plastic chamber, then a plunger pushes the coffee through a small paper filter into the cup. It combines steeping, as in a French press, with a paper filter, as in pour-over.
At a glance
- In the cup
- Coffee and water, paper-filtered
- Method
- A short steep, then hand pressure
- Gear
- Chamber, plunger, paper filter
- On sale since
- 2005
Who invented the AeroPress?
Alan Adler, an engineer who taught a course on sensors at Stanford and whose company made the Aerobie flying ring. According to AeroPress, Inc., he began experimenting with coffee makers in 2003 because he was unhappy with the single cups he could make at home, went through more than 30 prototypes in two years, and introduced the AeroPress at Coffee Fest Seattle in November 2005.
Source: About AeroPress, Inc. and Alan Adler, AeroPress, Inc.
How is it different from a French press?
Both steep the coffee in water, but the AeroPress then forces it through paper rather than holding the grounds back with mesh. The paper catches the fine particles and oils a press lets through, so the cup is cleaner and lighter; Harvard’s Nutrition Source notes that filtered coffee contains almost none of the cholesterol-raising diterpenes found in unfiltered brews.
Source: Coffee, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, The Nutrition Source
Read next
- French pressCoarse coffee steeped in hot water, then held back by pressing a metal mesh filter down through the pot.
- Pour-overHot water poured by hand over ground coffee in a filter, dripping through into the cup.
- EspressoA small, concentrated coffee made by forcing hot water through fine coffee at high pressure.
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