AeroPress

The brewer that forgives you. Two minutes, one paper filter, and a cup that survives being got slightly wrong.

THE RECIPE

Coffee: 14 g
Water: 200 g
Ratio: 1:14
Temperature: 88 °C
Grind: Medium-fine, like table salt
Time: 1:45 start to finish

One strong mug, about 180 ml

STEP BY STEP

0:00Rinse the paper in the cap under the hot tap, screw it on, stand the press on your mug. Rinsing takes the papery taste out and warms the mug at the same time.
0:0514 g of coffee in. Shake the chamber so the bed sits flat.
0:15Pour all 200 g of water in one steady go. A minute off the boil is about 88 °C in most kitchens; two minutes if it is winter and your bench is cold.
0:30Three stirs — one way, back, one way. Then seat the plunger a centimetre into the chamber. That seal is what stops it dripping through while it steeps.
1:15Press. Lean over it and use your body weight rather than your arm, and take about thirty seconds over it.
1:45Stop at the hiss. Squeezing the last of it out is where the bitterness lives.

You have around 180 ml of quite strong coffee. Drink it as it is, or lengthen it with 60 g of hot water — that is an Americano and there is nothing wrong with it.

WHAT TO PUT IN IT

BRAZIL

L'affare · Brazil

$5.25 /100g

200 g · $10.50

eighthirty standard blend

Eighthirty Coffee Roasters

$6.40 /100g

250 g · $16.00

Crave Fair Trade Organic

Hummingbird Coffee

$6.50 /100g

200 g · $12.99

How we check

The AeroPress does not discriminate, so neither does this list: it is the best value in stock right now, one bag per roaster, at shelf prices. Bags of 500 g and under only — a 2 kg sack is cheaper per gram and stale by the time one person reaches the bottom of it.

Why it forgives you

Nothing steeps long enough to go properly bitter, and the paper takes out the oils and the fines that make a mistake taste like a mistake. Grind a little off, water a little hot, thirty seconds late to the plunge — it is still a decent cup.

That is the whole reason it is the brewer people take camping, and the reason it is the one to learn on.

The inverted argument

Half the internet brews it upside down so nothing drips through while the coffee steeps. It works. It also balances 200 g of near-boiling water on a plunger over your hand.

Seating the plunger a centimetre in, as above, gets you nearly all of the same benefit with none of the burn. Brew inverted if you enjoy it. Don't brew inverted because somebody said it was correct.

When it goes wrong

Sour and thin: grind finer, or your water had cooled too far. Harsh and drying: you pressed past the hiss, or the grind is too fine. Muddy: the cap was not screwed on straight and the filter shifted.

One liberating fact

The AeroPress has a world championship. The recipes that have won it disagree with each other by a factor of two on dose, on time and on temperature. Take that as permission.

THE KIT

The pressAeroPress Classic$79.00 Raglan Roast
The plain original. The clear and XL versions cost more and brew the same.
The press, elsewhereAeroPress$79.95 Ozone Coffee Roasters
FiltersAeroPress filters, 350 pack$13.50 Red Rabbit Coffee Co.
350 filters is about a year of a cup a day.

How we check

Gear picked by hand, and every shop listed is one this site already tracks. Nothing here is sponsored and no link pays us. Prices re-checked against each shop's own catalogue nightly; last check 23 Aug 2026.

THE OTHER THREE

Pour-overWhere the coffee has nowhere to hide.PlungerThe brewer everybody apologises for.Grind sizeThe dial that fixes almost everything.