Made from BPA free plastic, this handy device makes an 8oz cup of coffee. Simply add more or less water depending on if you like your coffee stronger or not. Great for on the go or at the office. The article below comes from Home Grounds (homegrounds.co): What does the soft ride of your car and the smooth flavor of coffee have in common? For most brew methods, the answer is nothing, but if you use an AeroPress brewer then the answer is hydraulics (stay with me now). The AeroPress is the brainchild of professional inventor and real-life MacGyver, Alan Adler. Invented in 2005, the AeroPress is a unique and refreshing take on personal brewing. With your finely toned and coffee-saturated muscles as the driving force, the AeroPress uses a simple hydraulic cylinder to forcefully persuade the flavor out of your ground coffee beans. If you are accustomed to the standard drip method for brewing coffee, all this Aero-jargon may seem quite strange. You may be asking yourself how does it work, or why does it taste better, so, today, I’m going to go over the step-by-step process. However, instead of focusing on the instruction manual’s method, I am going to go over how to make an inverted Aeropress, and I’ll tell you why in just a bit. What You’ll Need You'll need your Aeropress parts, some coffee beans, a grinder and a gooseneck kettle. Despite the complex connotation “hydraulic cylinder” brings to mind, the AeroPress is a fairly straightforward device. It only has a couple more parts than a pour-over brewer, yet, with a nice set of opposable thumbs, you will be able to handle the challenge. Here’s a list of all its different Aeropress parts: The plunger (top cylinder), which has a rubber cap on one end to create an airtight seal. The chamber (bottom cylinder), where the coffee grounds and hot water is poured. The filter cap, where you place the filter, and which screws onto the bottom of the chamber. Filters, which I shouldn’t have to explain. A funnel, to make life easier. A scoop, to measure out the right amount of coffee grounds. And a stirrer, to, you know, stir. The plunger, chamber, filters and filter cap are basic necessities, but you can use your own measuring scoop and stirrer. All that matters is that you maintain some level of precision and consistency. Don't forget your kettle (use a gooseneck spout for best results), your coffee beans and your grinder! Step by Step Instructions Although Mr. Adler was creative enough to invent the AeroPress, his intended brewing method isn’t the most flavor efficient. Just in case you want to try it out for yourself, you can find his method here. The three big problems with his method are: Pouring the grounds and hot water on top of the filter allows some under-extracted coffee to drip into your cup. Your grounds need longer than 10 seconds - about 1 ½ minutes - to properly steep in the hot water. Using Adler’s method, the bloom, which is the thin layer of foam that is rich in aroma and flavor, is lost when it is pushed through the puck of grounds sitting as the bottom of the chamber. However, thanks to the ever-critical minds of fanatical baristas, a solution has been found. This solution, the inverted AeroPress method is still very simple, and only requires a little more time than Adler’s. But don’t just take my word for it, check out MacGyver himself using the inverted method to make “the best cup of coffee in the world.” Step 1 - Measure and Grind If you’ve read any of my other “how-tos” then you’ve probably caught onto the pattern. If you haven’t, then here it is: always grind your coffee right before you brew. Pre-ground coffee loses its flavor the longer it sits, so it is best to grind only what you plan on brewing. To that point, you typically want your coffee-to-water ratio at 1/16. With the Aeropress, that is about 17g of coffee, or roughly 1 ½ Aeropress scoops. Step 2 - Warm Up and Rinse Your Aeropress Now, use hot water to rinse the Aeropress filter and warm up the chamber. Not ev