For well over a year now I’ve been using an Aeropress. I started with a crappy espresso machine, then moved on to cafetiere, still dabble with filters (Chemex is on my list of things to buy) but the one piece of equipment I’ve stuck with has been my Aeropress.
Much to the cringe of many people I can’t actually brew well with the Aeropress. Every single brew is different, I’m currently drinking what’s quite possibly the worst cup of coffee I’ve made from it in a long while. This is because I purposely brew different, I like to experiment with it. I spent a good 8 months brewing top down (coffee grounds in, water on top, no flip), this method was ok but not great. After watching a few videos I moved over to the flip side (quite literally) something which has improved the brew a lot. The flip side method is an odd one, I was nervous when I first tried it, I mean hot water flying everywhere is not my idea of a great time. I’ve only ever had it gone wrong once and that was down to a miss shaped filter paper which resulted in a coffee cup full of grounds.
My current cup of coffee is bad, it’s bad for a number of reasons, poor quality coffee, water too hot and finally I usually never plunge all the way but did this time. I’ll still drink it because it’s a new flavour for me, something I can remember and build on.