The AeroPress was invented by Alan Adler, an engineer and aerodynamics lecturer at Stanford, and first released in 2005. What began as an attempt to brew a single, clean cup in under a minute quickly became one of the most versatile brewers in specialty coffee. It pairs immersion steeping with a gentle piston press through a paper filter, giving it a footprint somewhere between a French press and a pour-over.
The cup is where the AeroPress earns its reputation. The paper filter removes most of the oils and fines that a metal mesh would let through, while the short press extracts less bitterness than a long drip. The result is a clean, bright cup with more body than a V60 and less sediment than a French press — a cup that punches well above the price of the brewer.
Recipes vary wildly because the AeroPress invites experimentation: standard, inverted, bypass, long steep. A common starting point is 15–18 g of coffee to 200–250 g of water, a medium-fine grind, water at 85–92 °C, and a total time under two minutes. If you only try one recipe, make it James Hoffmann's "Ultimate AeroPress" — simple, bypass-based, and forgiving of grind. The World AeroPress Championship, running since 2008, is a good rabbit hole once you outgrow the basics.
