- Joined
- Jun 30, 1998
- Location
- Bierland
Max will be out until next Monday (the 27th), so just a heads up he won't be processing any PABs, posting warnings, reading PMs or emails. If you need anything, you can always contact me
Well deserved break, Max - perhaps to somewhere a little cooler than Paris?
... perhaps to somewhere a little cooler than Paris?
It would be rather expensive to hire a live in Barista for one's coffee needs
True, but find a good coffee shop and their creation will cost you a buck or two. Or three, whatever.
Or you could learn to do it yourself. You can brew a seriously good cup of coffee nothing more than good beans ($5-7 for 250 grams), a $20 hand grinder and a $5 microfilter. And a coffee cup. Or spring $30 for the Aeropress and you're into the gourmet coffee league (still need that grinder though). It's just a matter of whether you can be bothered, the entry costs and skills required are not prohibitive. The results are light-years better than anything you'll ever get at Tarpucks, no matter how much you pay.
How does the Aeropress compare with the more usual cafetierre?
Why AeroPress is not a French Press
The difference between French Press and AeroPress lies in both the filtering and in the time the water is in contact with the water. Using a French Press, the coffee soaks in water for three minutes. This will extract more acidity from the coffee.⁂ Also, the French Press doesn’t use pressure as a brewing method. The AeroPress uses pressure to force the water through a filter after only a short time in contact with the coffee. This extracts more of the oils in the coffee, ensuring lots of taste and aroma, but lower acidity and less bitterness.
When you’re done pressing the water through the AeroPress, the ground coffee is no longer in contact with the finished product. Using a French Press, the filter is merely used to divide the coffee grounds and the coffee. However, they are still in the same container.
So, an AeroPress is more effective than a French Press in extracting only the good taste and not the bitterness and acidity from the coffee.
If you mean a сafetière à piston -- aka French Press -- then you might find the following worthwhile:
⁂ And caffeine: the longer coffee grounds are in contact with water the more caffeine is extracted and ends up in the cup. This is one of the reasons why proper espresso is -- believe it or not -- comparatively low in caffeine. It is also why percolated coffee, for example, is outrageously high in caffeine.
This was lifted from an article entitled "AeroPress - Smooth coffee in 30 seconds" (You do not have permission to view link Log in or register now.).
FWIW I have and have used a French Press for years. It does make good coffee but IMO the Aeropress stuff is noticeably richer and smoother. But then again I do use fresh-ground coffee -- as in I grind it myself minutes before brewing -- without exception. FYI ground Arabica coffee goes stale in 24 hours, so store-bought blends use Robusta beans to compensate since Robusta beans are much higher in caffeine and noticeably lower in the complex oils that give Arabica beans their great taste spectrum.
In other words if you're using pre-ground supermarket coffee then you've already made a boat-load of compromises in terms of the coffee you drink: you can never get a top-grade cup of coffee out of that stuff no matter what you do to it. To refer back to the wine analogy we're talking the difference between a good vintage wine and factory stuff from a gallon box. Drinkable? Your call, but never gourmet quality. I suspect the Aeropress would still make a better brew from supermarket pre-ground but how much better is a guess. I won't be buying supermarket coffee in order to find out.
And in case you are wondering, yes, I am a coffee snob, or at least an amateur coffee gormand. No one buys green beans, sorts them, roasts them himself, waits while they age a day or so, and grinds just enough to brew a single cup of turkish or Aeropress or whatever using only low-mineral spring water would pretend to be anything else. Then again, I get to drink better coffee than most of the leaders of the world so ... snob I am and happy to enjoy the fruits of my labours. The beauty of it is that if you want you can be serious about coffee for small money and a bit of effort. It's actually very easy, if you can be arsed. If not, rock on, enjoy your brew of choice!