Coffee

My best solution

The incredible Aeropress

Coffee is my sole guilty pleasure. I don’t smoke, don’t drink much, but I absolutely need to have my 3-4 cups of extremely strong coffee every day.

For the last few years I have had my coffee ritual down pat. I buy coffee beans in bulk, grind them myself by hand, and make single cups of coffee when I want to drink one.

The coffee I make is extremely strong (most people need to water it down to drink) but very tasty. Most coffee I buy now doesn’t match up to it.

​Today’s post is about how to make excellent coffee at home or at work in Japan. You may find some or all of the elements useful 🙂

​You will need a handful of things:

  • Aeropress coffee maker (created by the same guy that made the Aerobee flying ring, weirdly enough)
  • Coffee beans
  • Coffee grinder
  • Kettle

I’m going to assume you have a kettle, or have access to one if you are traveling. The nice thing about this setup is that it is fairly portable -I almost always take it with me on trips.

​The key piece of equipment is the Aeropress -a very reasonably priced device that makes amazing coffee. You can read more about it on wikipedia.

I tend to ignore some of the official advice -for example I use boiling water instead of 80-92 degrees, and I use more coffee than recommended.

I used to brew inverted but recently have been following the instructions and have found it works slightly better for me.

Drinking 3-4 cups a day (four scoops of beans for each), and making 1-2 cups for my wife means that I get through a lot of coffee beans! I tend to buy in bulk every 2-3 months, and always get the Costco branded Kirkland Starbucks Espresso Roast beans in 900g bags. They are quite a bit cheaper if you go to Costco, but I am lazy and tend to get them from Amazon Japan instead.

Coffee grinders ideally should be ceramic and have adjustable burrs (so you can change how fine or coarse the grind is). Electric ones tend to be really expensive, but hand ones are pretty cheap, with the added benefit of being portable. I like this Hario one.

So how to make coffee?

  1. boil water
  2. grind four scoops of coffee beans (takes 2-4 minutes, depending on how sleepy you are)
  3. set up Aeropress on cup
  4. put ground coffee in Aeropress
  5. pour hot water onto coffee
  6. allow to steep for 1-2 minutes
  7. press out coffee
  8. clean Aeropress immediately (I didn’t know about this until recently, which may have ruined my first one)
  9. drink coffee
  10. repeat until hands shake

I like this setup so much that I actually have three Aeropresses and grinders: one at work, one at home, and one at my wife’s school.

I’m pretty sure I learned about the Aeropress from Tim Ferriss.

How about you? Are you a coffee drinker? What do you use?

12 Responses

  2. As a result of acid reflux I had to give up caffeine and alcohol 2 months ago. I can live without alcohol but really miss my morning coffee. Withdrawing from caffeine meant a migraine for 2 days. However, I have been sleeping better and feel more alert in the morning. When I feel that the AR issue has passed I’ll start drinking Cold Brew Coffee to avoid the acid problem. Saw somewhere on YouTube that you have only 24 hours to use roast coffee beans before they lose their flavour and phytochemicals. Seems a case of roast, brew and drink. Japan has a stronger coffee culture than the U.K. Will be looking for a stove top coffee bean roaster when I visit my JPIL next a Spring.

  3. I would suggest that for most people they try to make the coffee with water close to 96C/205F. Hotter than that and you will burn the coffee beans and give it a burnt taste. Given that the Starbucks Espresso beans used already have a burnt taste (all Starbucks coffee has a burnt taste) and the extra strong nature of the brew being made then the extra burnt-ness from the boiling water isn’t probably noticed.
    Decent electric burr grinders are a bit more expensive in Japan but not outrageously so. I’ve got a DeLonghi KG364J that was about 8000 yen. It’s identical to a Capresso that I had in the US and used for many years.

  5. Hey Ben, I have to agree with you that the AeroPress makes nearly the best cup of coffee. I find it much better than drip. Somehow, different nuances of flavor come out with the AP compared to drip. I usually drink stove top espresso though. I find there is less bitterness in my coffee this way. No nuances but less bitterness. Also, I have a similar DeLonghi grinder that has served me well for the last ~15 years. Only drawback which afflicts almost all grinders is the static electricity. I find that touching a grounded point in my kitchen while holding on to the grinder helps a lot… I am now looking at the OXO BREW Conical Burr Coffee Grinder as a replacement which is said to have much less static electricity.

    1. I forgot to mention that if you aren’t already, you might consider the special made stainless steel filter that is available for the AeroPress. The paper filters absorb some of the oil so the stainless filtered coffee tastes even better IMHO.

  6. I first heard of the Aeropress from Cory Doctorow on BoingBoing (also a SF writer). You seem to be just as obsessive as he. The Aeropress makes wonderful coffee, even cold brew. Wonderful stuff.