AeroPress® Coffee & Espresso Maker

I picked one of these up at BBB on a whim when I picked up a new grinder, and after a month of tinkering with it, I'm finally starting to produce really good cups of coffee - there is most definitely a learning curve to using this thing, but when you get it down, the cup it creates is hard to beat. A google search on "Aeropress recipes" will quickly reveal there about 600 different way to use the Aeropress, and I've probably looked at them all and tried a lot of them, and I've learned quite a bit about coffee while doing my research. Here's some tips I've picked up to get a rookie Aeropress user started... - Buy a kitchen thermometer so you can check the temp on your water - If you wanna really geek out, go get a gram scale to weigh your coffee/water - Try different coffees. Stale grocery store beans rarely taste great no matter how you brew them, and it just so happens the Aeropress really brings out the character of the bean. Bad bean, bad coffee. - Don't be afraid to EXPERIMENT to get the cup you're looking for; try the inverted method where you flip it upside down, try hotter/colder water, try different steep times, try stirring more or stirring less, try different grind sizes, try faster/slower press times, try using more/less coffee, try just using the instructions that come with the aeropress. The amount of control you have other the brewing process is amazing, so try some different things and see what happens. Here's something I don't like about the Aeropress; for the life of me I cannot create more than 13-16oz of good coffee with this thing. Try as I might to fill up my 20 oz travel mug, it just doesn't happen. Once you put a proper dose of coffee in the Aeropress for 20 oz of drink, there is hardly room for brewing water, so the end product must be diluted considerably to reach 20 oz. The idea is to create a potent "shot" like espresso and dilute it to attain an americano, but the coffee produced is never that great - it tastes watered down and sour, or watered down and bitter, and just seems to waste more coffee no matter how I've tried it. That being said, the Aeropress was meant as a single-serving brewing system, so I can't blame it for not cranking out a big mug of coffee. The product is fun to play with, built solidly, and makes a dang good cup of coffee after you get a method down that suits your tastes. The reason it only gets 4 stars from me? 1. It won't fill up my 20 oz travel mug 2. The learning curve and effort is high compared to other methods (auto-drip), and I could see how some people might not want to play sleepy mad scientist in the morning to make a cup of coffee. Sometimes I too just want to throw coffee and water in a machine and get going. That being said, the Aeropress is inexpensive and worth a shot if you're looking for a better cup of coffee than a cheap auto-drip machine can produce.