In my 25 years of coffee drinking, nothing beats the Aerobie Aeropress for making an 8 oz or smaller Americano-style cup of coffee. But, I drink two 12 oz mugs of coffee each day. The Aeropress can be used to brew spectacularly good 12 oz mugs of coffee. I have used it to brew my coffee for some two years now. But, the method is tedious, clumsy and sometimes messy.
This lead me to seek out alternative one-at-a-time brewing methods (details here). After more than a full month of perfecting my Bodum Chambord brewing technique, including two weeks with a nylon fine sediment filterscreen from sweet maria’s (details here), I decided it was time to give my new found Bodum-brewing prowess the ultimate test – a head to head competition against the Aeropress.
[August 1, 2008 Update: I posted my results here on the coffee geek forum. The inventor of the Aeropress, Alan Adler, suggested I up my Aerobie Aeropress bean dosage from 2 scoops to 3.5, pass only about 4 to 5 ounces of water through the press, then top the mug up with hot water. The resulting mug was simply one of the best mugs of coffee I ever had. Details and pictures are in that thread starting here. The downside is that almost doubling the beans is a very expensive proposition. Something I can’t afford to do every day. But it does result in one easy to brew, spectacular mug of coffee.]
The Playing Field
Identically measured (20 g – two Aerobie scoops), freshly roasted, freshly ground Peets Arabian Mocha Sanani beans (my favourite). - Identically filtered water, boiled to the same temperature at the same time in the same pot.
- Identical steep times.
- Identical Peets mugs for tasting. 🙂
- Identically measured creme (30 ml – 2 Tbsp).
- All utensils, mugs and equipment freshly run through the dishwasher.
Continue reading “Mug-at-a-Time Head to Head: Bodum Chambord vs. Aerobie Aeropress”
