Many years ago, I stopped by the AeroPress booth at a trade show and asked if anything new was rolling out. The answer, which I may be over-interpreting now, is a “wait a few more years.”
The original like a giant snub-nosed syringe that produces delicious coffee. It is compact, moves well and is quite easy to clean. To make a batch, put the grounds into the cavity, pour hot water over it, stir well, then use the plunger to force the coffee through a flat, round filter into your cup. It was invented by the same person who invented it aerobicsand since it was first introduced, the company has launched only one notable supplement: The press plane goes, a model that is almost perfect for making coffee on the road. The original and the Go have a rabid fan following among baristas and other coffee lovers alike.
Fans always want more. Now that the company has changed hands, they are getting even more. Currently, or coming soon, are a few accessories; One clear pattern made of Tritan resin; a more luxurious glass, aluminum and stainless steel version; and the newly released XL. I just got my hands on the super-large AeroPress XL a little over a month ago and have been using it almost every day since. It has twice the volume of the original, with increased dimensions for all major components—piston, chamber, lid, filter, and agitator. It also comes with a pot to squeeze the coffee into. Overall, the whole thing feels one much larger than the original.
Photo: Aeropress
There’s not much to learn. It works just like its predecessor, so I just add a generous amount of coffee and water to each brew. The coffee tasted like it should, but the whole thing felt almost disproportionately loud. Then I brought it to the lab at Olympia coffee roasting company in Seattle; I wanted to see what their retail coach, Reyna Callejo—one of the country’s top baristas and avid AeroPress fan—had to think about.
We chat about an 18-day trip she took to Japan a few years ago and how she uses her AeroPress daily. Then she took the new version out of the box. She seemed surprised because it was much larger than the original. She places the plunger at the end of the chamber the same way you would a bartender and holds it up to her arm, where the whole part extends from her wrist to the middle of her biceps.
Reyna heats the water and starts the blender for what she calls the “best for most people” method. Shrinked to fit the XL’s larger volume, this uses 30 grams of beans with 500 grams of water. (That’s 1:16.67, for all the coffee geeks out there.) Then, in a sign of impending unwieldyness, she climbs onto a stool. to work with XL. She has a good reason to climb there: When you stick the piston in the chamber and place it on top of the safety tank, it will be about 19 inches tall. I’m 6 feet tall, and on a 36-inch countertop, that setup is in the middle of my sternum. At 5′ 3″, Reyna felt too tall for her to function safely without a stool.
