reparing coffee in the morning is sacred ritual for all coffee lovers. We relish every step that brings us to that perfect cup that will jumpstart our day. However, the ritual sometimes just takes a bit too long for our liking --traditional drip coffee makers take forever to make a single cup while the pour over method sometimes feels like it takes a thousand steps and a half a lifetime for a cup (yes, time in the morning drags  before you’ve had your coffee).

Fortunately one really smart dude named Alan Adler (he’s an engineer and physicist) decided that we coffee lovers who like to prepare our own coffee should not suffer any longer and invented the AeroPress. But what is the AeroPress?

AreoPress is a plastic coffee-making gadget that is super easy to operate and yields a good cup or two in just a minute! It works with a special coffee filter which is very fine and does a terrific job in producing a clean flavor and preventing the sludge that often accumulates at the bottom of French-pressed coffee.

Here are a few other things to love about the AeroPress:

It’s cheap. You can get it for around $25 with a year’s supply of filters, and it’s easy to find too (Hi, Amazon)!

It’s simple. You won’t need a burr grinder like you would when doing a French press and you don’t have to learn any special techniques to produce a good cup as with the pour over method.

Easy clean-up. The whole gadget is easy to assemble and disassemble. For clean up, all you have to do is disassemble, ditch the grinds into the trash, and rinse!

Travel-friendly. Because it’s plastic and light, you can take it with your wherever you go.

Clean flavors. By sheer luck or by science, its inventor managed to create a gadget that produces clean flavors which is great when you really wanna experience that subtle differences of different roasts and varietals.

Ready to start brewing? Here are a couple of tips to remember.

If you have to be mindful of one thing when making AeroPress coffee, it is the water temperature. Boiling water will give you bitter coffee so it’s best to take your boiling water off the stove for a minute before you pour it into the AeroPress. The creator’s recommended temperature is 175°F so you can aim for that if you want to be super accurate.

Now this second tip is just as, if not more, important as the first one: use quality beans. Yeah, one of the things that makes the AeroPress stand out is its ability to produce a clean flavor, however, it doesn’t do that with bad beans --it’s an excellent coffee maker, not a miracle worker.

Mid-roast coffees are perfect.

So now, how do we make that perfect cup with the AeroPress?

1. Heat the water. If you’re using a thermometer, aim for 175°F. If not, just boil the water and let it sit away from the stove for a minute before pouring. I typically like to use a kettle like the Bonavita Stovetop Gooseneck Kettle

1. ind the beans. The AeroPress comes with its own scoop. Use one scoop to make one cup. Grind coffee until fine.  The Baratza Encore Coffee Grinder makes a great choice for coffee grinding. 

Assemble the unit and fit in the paper filter that comes with it. Now, place the assembled unit on top of a mug or small pitcher. Then, add the ground coffee using the funnel that also comes with the unit to avoid making a mess (we know you haven’t had coffee but you can do this!).

 
Add the water up to the top line.
Stir once with the paddle stirrer that also comes with the unit.
Insert the plunger and press it down firmly until you hear that long hiss of air.
You’re done. Depending on how strong you like your coffee, you can add more hot water.

Two cups of ground coffee yields about two cups. If the AeroPress has a downside, it is this. You can only make up to two cups at a time.There’s another method for making AeroPress coffee which you can find below. Enjoy!

The upside down method