If you drink coffee, you have certainly heard of them. French Press vs Aeropress, the two contenders for most coffee drinkers’ preparation method of choice. As their popularity grows, people hold increasingly mixed opinions about their respective pros and cons of each one.
Wondering which one you will go for next? The below is an attempt to settle the debate. Or at least to give you more confidence to pick one over the other.
The basics of French Press
French Press has been around for about 90 years. The actual device is made of a carafe with a stand, a plunger with a filter, and a lid attached to the plunger.
French press is suitable for a coarser grind, which makes it necessary to allow for a little more time to brew French Press coffee. This is to make sure your coffee steeps long enough to extract the best of its taste.
Once done – usually in about 5 minutes – you simply push the plunger down and enjoy the coffee that stays on top, now without any leftover grounds.
The basics of Aeropress
Aeropress is a very simple but elegant brewer. Its shape resembles a piston as it consists of two tubular parts, one of which is slightly smaller.
By pushing the smaller tube through the larger one, your brew is forced through a thin paper filter situated at the other end. The resulting beverage is a rich, aromatic brew that tastes like something between an espresso and an americano.
Aeropress has gained in popularity not only because of the phenomenal brew it makes, but also because of its simple design as well as ease of use. This includes its perhaps most beloved trait – being shockingly easy to clean.
French Press vs Aeropress
To make things easy, we summarized and simplified the main differences in the comparison table below. In short, there are five criteria on which we judged them. Alternatively, you can check out this video.
First, richness of taste is of course the main one. There is little to debate here, as one can achieve the perfect taste using either Aeropress or French Press. This is a matter of individual preference, although one could say French Press often tastes a little fuller. One possible reason is that coffee grounds get steeped longer compared to Aeropress.
Second is affordability. Luckily, both of them are very much affordable, ranging between 20 and 60 US dollars.
Third, we compared the amount of servings one can produce using each method. French Press is an undisputed winner on this front. Perhaps it is for this reason that it is a student staple!
Fourth, Aeropress wins in terms of ease of use. It is a very simple device that is easy to assemble, manipulate and, most importantly, clean.
Fifth, although the pandemic tamed down travel significantly, pre-COVID travellers surely recall how handy Aeropress is on the go. Traveling with French Press, on the other hand, is inconceivable to most of us.
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