The Brew Blog

The AeroPress is the most versatile brewer ever designed — filter coffee, espresso-style concentrate, iced, travel, a dozen variations in between, all from $40 of plastic. If you owned only one brewer for the rest of your life, you could do far worse.

People love to make this an ideological fight. It isn't. The AeroPress and French press produce different coffee for different situations, and once you know what each does well, the choice is usually obvious within thirty seconds. Here's the honest breakdown.

Inverting the AeroPress eliminates the one annoying quirk of the standard method: drip-through during steeping. You get full control over contact time, which matters more than any other variable in the brew. Step by step, including the flip — the only tricky part.

Is AeroPress espresso actually espresso? No. Real espresso runs at 9 bar of pressure; an AeroPress manages around 0.5. But the AeroPress can produce a concentrated, low-acid base that works beautifully in milk drinks, and that's worth knowing how to make properly.

Your AeroPress shouldn't feel like a brick wall or a freefall. Here's how to diagnose plunge resistance and dial in the perfect press.