Choosing Your Weapon: A Brief Rundown On The Differences Between Manual Coffee Makers
If you've ever wondered why are there so many different ways to make the same drink, aren't they all pretty much the same? then you are definitely not the only one. The coffee industry has done a fantastic job of turning the simple task of preparing a hot drink into a mission with seemingly hundreds of variables.
What they don't want you hearing is: it's not really that complicated! It all boils down to how strongly flavoured you want the coffee and how long you've got. Here's a quick guide giving you a rundown on the key differences between the most prominent manual coffee makers: French Press, Moka Pot, Aeropress.
French Press
The French Press, otherwise known in France as the 'coffee maker with a piston' (for the mechanical enthusiasts), is one of the oldest forms of coffee maker out there.
How to Prepare
It is also one of the simplest to prepare in that it extracts flavour through steeping - i.e. simply leaving ground coffee to rest in boiled water for 4-6 minutes before drinking. The preparation time is important because overextraction will give the coffee a bitter taste.
Grind Type
To get the best outcome from your french press, you should use a coarse grind for your beans. Think breadcrumbs and you can't go wrong! Many speciality coffee sellers will offer grind options specifically for filter/french press, but if grinding at home, make sure to set your grinder to a course setting to avoid getting grit in your teeth when drinking!
Flavour
Your coffee should have a lighter profile with flavours coming through more subtly than coffees prepared using espresso methods. It can sometimes look and taste almost akin to tea, but of course this depends on your ratio of water to coffee and the extraction time.
Moka Pot
The mighty Moka Pot (named after the Yemeni port city of Mocha and not the Mocha you see in cafés) is perhaps the sleekest of all coffee makers, and a gem for those who use it properly!
How to Prepare
Moka pots work by forcing steam from a bottom chamber through a disc of ground coffee using gasses expanding under sufficient heat, into a top chamber - in short, water goes in the bottom, coffee comes out the top! You use a stove-top to boil the water. The most important thing to be conscious of is to maintain a medium heat level to avoid burning the coffee in the process of extraction. When the coffee starts to sing (or whistle), remove it from the stove immediately.
Grind Type
The method for preparing coffee in a moka pot is similar to making an espresso, so the coffee needs to be ground similarly to an espresso, only a wee bit less fine - think a granule of sugar.
Flavour
Your coffee will have an intense flavour, similar to an espresso, and as such is more suited to espresso style coffee types. If espressos aren't your thing, add some water to the final cup to make an americano/long black style drink
AeroPress
The AeroPress was developed in 2005 in Stanford as a solution to the perceived bitterness in coffee when prepared with other methods. SInce then it has become a bit of a trend, with AeroPress World championships attracting swathes every year competing to be the best AeroPress...er.
How to Prepare
The conventional method to prepare coffee in an AeroPress is to steep coffee in water in a cylendrical tube capped with a filter before pressing a narrower 'suction' tube through to pressurise the water through the coffee and directly into a mug. Hence, it is a halfway house between an espresso machine - which uses pressure - and a French Press - which uses a steeping method. However, the steeping time is shorter - 1 1/2 to 2 minutes to avoid over extraction - and the pressure comes from air rather than steam, avoiding extraction of the bitter elements of the bean.
Grind Type
As the Aeropress is a halfway house between the espresso and the filter coffee, you should use a medium-fine grind to get the best results - we're aiming for fine sand this time.
Flavour
The benefit of the AeroPress is it's versatility - depending on the fineness of the grind and the ratio of water to coffee, you can make coffee which either resembles an espresso based drink or a French Press. You should be able to get the full flavour profile of espresso coffees without the bitter notes common in over-extracted espressos.
So What Manual Coffee Maker Should I Choose?
We don't like sitting on the fence at Coffee Lab, so here are our recommendations to you if you're in the market:
- If you like lightly balanced flavour in your coffee, with minimal bitterness - choose French Press
- If you like strong bold flavour in your coffee or a milky drink where the coffee really cuts through the milk - choose Moka Pot
- If you, yourself, sit on the fence and like a bit of both, or you want to minimise the bitterness in your coffee - choose AeroPress
And regardless of your choice, our range of coffees caters to any coffee device, implement, machine or otherwise. Check out our range of products below.