An AeroPress review from a coffee noob

I’m not a coffee fanatic. While I was at university I drunk plenty of instant coffee but I started to get put off by the lingering taste in my mouth. I think the defining coffee was an awful one on a Crosscountry train which made me feel sick and from then on my brain associated coffee with feeling sick. Therefore not that long ago I would always choose tea over coffee and never have instant coffee.

The only time I would have coffee was if it was made properly in a restaurant or a coffee shop. Recently I started to have more coffee-shop-coffees and so I started to get in to coffee a bit more again, but my wallet really didn’t thank me.

One day @petermacrobert bought an Aeropress for work to try and relieve our wallets of funding our caffeine needs, and it was so good I requested one for my birthday which was a few weeks later.

I’d describe an AeroPress as a bit like a cross between a cafetiere and an espresso maker in design. It uses a airtight plunger to act a bit like a giant syringe filled with finely ground coffee (espresso-style, not coarser grinds required by a cafetiere) and water, which you then use to force the mixture through a microfilter using pressure generated by pushing the ‘plunger’ down.

The AeroPress makes a wonderful cup of coffee. It is smooth, full of flavour, and completely ‘gunk’ free. I haven’t yet made a bad cup of coffee with it (not counting the time I forgot to fit a microfilter). What’s great about it is it allows you to explore the world of coffee for a low cost and without any bulky equipment. The only disadvantage is you won’t get anything apart from an Americano-style coffee; no froth! That said, I thoroughly recommend it to anyone who is interested in exploring coffee and the different flavours of coffee beyond instant and coffee shops. It has made me enjoy coffee I make myself again, and now my tea-coffee balance is much more even.

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