The best coffee for an AeroPress is freshly ground coffee beans. Pre-ground coffee works ok but if you grind your own beans just before making your coffee then the flavour will be at least twice as good. Grind slightly coarser than espresso for best results.
Using an AeroPress to make coffee is the cheapest way to make great coffee. You can make better coffee with an expensive coffee machine but you won’t be able to make a better tasting cup of coffee for such a small outlay of money than you can with an Aeropress.
But there is a caveat…… you need to use good coffee beans prepared correctly.
If you don’t already own an AeroPress then this is our full review:
How to choose coffee for an AeroPress
Very few coffee makers enjoy across the board top ratings but this one does over many years.
We know it’s a great coffee maker but it needs to be paired with the right coffee to get the best out of it.
You wouldn’t drink white wine with a sirloin steak as it would ruin the flavour and the experience.
But if you pair a juicy steak with a full-bodied red then the wine and the meat complement each other to create an experience that is far better than if you choose a wine that isn’t supposed to go with the food you are eating.
It’s exactly the same with an AeroPress. If you don’t put the right coffee in you won’t get the best experience.
If you buy cheap pre-ground coffee from the supermarket then it will make coffee but it won’t be anywhere near as nice as if you choose some freshly roasted coffee beans and grind them yourself.
Coffee starts to lose its freshness within a few weeks of it being roasted and much faster as soon as its been ground.
If you are used to buying pre-ground coffee you will probably notice that the first few cups taste amazing and then after a while it’s not as good and that’s because after a few days it starts to go stale.
Once the coffee is exposed to the air it starts to go off and if the packet you buy is lasting you for more than 3 days then all the coffee you make after that won’t taste as good.
There is a really simple solution to drink coffee at its freshest and tastiest every time…… freshly roasted coffee beans.
Most coffee beans from the supermarket don’t have the roasting date on the packaging, only the use-by date as required by law.
That’s because the beans were probably roasted months before and although they are vacuum-sealed, they won’t taste as good as beans roasted in the last few weeks.
Supermarket beans are also really cheap because all the supermarkets are competing with each other and they all want to have the best value.
The great thing about coffee beans is that you don’t need to spend a lot of money on them to get great coffee but you should avoid the really cheap ones because at the lower prices you get lower quality Robusta beans and not higher quality Arabica beans.
As a good guide, coffee beans in the region of £20-£25 per kg that have been roasted recently are miles better than the cheap stuff that costs £10-£12 per kg.
A lot of the beans we recommend for your AeroPress will have the roasting date on the packet because they come from small roasteries in the UK that roast in small batches for maximum freshness.
Once you have fresh beans then grinding them is a lot easier than you may think and won’t take more than a few seconds before its ready to add to your AeroPress for the best coffee you have ever tasted.
This is the best coffee for AeroPress in the UK:
Spiller & Tait signature blend coffee beans 1kg
This is a great value medium roast coffee perfectly suited to Aeropress. Blended from beans from Columbia, Brazil, Kenya, Ethiopia and India this is an award-winning coffee and a best seller over a number of years.
You won’t find this in supermarkets as its roasted in small batches on a regular basis for maximum freshness. Great value for money and really good quality coffee.
See the full review of the Spiller & Taite signature coffee beans
Good Life single origin Costa Rican coffee beans 500g
If you want to treat yourself or someone else to something a little bit special then you will definitely taste the difference when you drink this single-origin coffee from Good Life.
They actually roast your coffee to order and whenever I have ordered it the roasting date has never been more than 5 days before the date it was delivered to me and they even put your name on the packet as well.
This is a medium roast single-origin coffee from Costa Rica and it costs more than the others on this list but when you drink it you’ll know why.
See the full review of the Good Life single origin Costa Rican coffee beans
Organic coffee beans 1kg
If the environment is as important to you as the flavour then these completely pesticide-free organic beans are single-origin from Columbia and are a great option for your AeroPress.
They are also Fairtrade approved which means the farmers are guaranteed to get a fair deal out of it.
See the full review of the Coffee Masters organic coffee beans
If whole coffee beans are not your thing then these are some great ground coffee options for AeroPress:
Premium Organic Arabica Ground Coffee
This ground coffee comes in 2 x 250g tubs so that it stays are fresher for longer than if it came in one big tub.
Roasted and ground by a Spanish family-owned business that have a real passion for coffee and have been selecting and roasting the best beans for over 60 years.
This is a full-flavoured and full-bodied coffee that is best suited to those that like to take their coffee strong.
See the full review of the Premium organic Arabica ground coffee
Spiller & Tait Signature Blend Ground Coffee
This is the ground coffee version of our highly rated Signature blend coffee beans from Spiller & Tait. They are medium ground making this ideal for AeroPress.
See the full review of the Spiller & Tait Signature blend ground coffee
Ground Coffee Tasting Bag
If you want to try coffee from a range of different countries but you don’t want to buy larger quantities in case you don’t love them all then this is a great way to find out what you like before committing spending more on a big bag of coffee.
You 10 x 60g of coffee from many countries around the world with a lovely leaflet that explains each one and what you can expect from each coffee.
This also works brilliantly as a gift.
See the full review of the ground coffee tasting bag
How to grind coffee for an AeroPress
One of the disadvantages of using pre-ground coffee to make coffee with your AeroPress is that you have to accept it the way it has been ground which almost certainly won’t be best for AeroPress.
Most Pre-ground coffee will be too fine for your AeroPress and will result in the coffee being over-extracted because it will be harder for you to push down on the plunger and will cause the coffee to be over-extracted (this is when the water stays in contact with the ground coffee for too long)
If you grind the coffee yourself then you take control over the grind fineness.
Espresso is the most finely ground coffee type and is so fine that is will feel and look like flour.
For Aeropress, it should not be as fine as an Espresso grind and look and feel more like sand when you look at it and feel it.
You can achieve that with a coffee grinder that costs as little as £10. Coffee grinders that cheap are called blade coffee grinders because a blade spins around and chops the beans up in a matter of seconds.
Whilst this is ok and definitely better than using pre-ground coffee you can sometimes be left with uneven pieces of ground coffee and this can lead to inconsistencies in the brewing process.
For a little bit more and a consistent grind size every time you can opt for a burr coffee grinder that uses disks to crush the beans instead of a blade to chop them up.
These articles provide a detailed explanation on how to choose a coffee grinder:
Why is the AeroPress so popular?
Making great coffee can be expensive and confusing. There are numerous different types of coffee makers and coffee machines to choose from and they range from the really good to the utterly terrible.
Coffee is also a very personal thing so what works really well for you may be terrible for someone else.
If you like strong coffee drinks like espresso or espresso-based drinks such as cappuccino or latte then a coffee machine that specifically produces those drinks can set you back hundreds of pounds (or more!).
If you prefer a milder coffee with or without milk then using a cafetière or filter coffee machine may suit your taste.
This article goes through some of the best affordable coffee machines out there:
What makes the AeroPress so popular is its simplicity, cost and ability to produce a really good cup of coffee.
Add the coffee, add water, plunge and within a few minutes, you have a delicious coffee to enjoy.
If you use the right coffee and you grind it yourself just before adding it to your AeroPress you can enjoy a cup of coffee that is better than other coffee machines that cost 5 or 10 times more.
And therein lies the beauty of an AeroPress. it does something that most other coffee makers cannot do and that is produce great coffee, cheaply.
Here is a short video showing how to make the perfect cup of coffee with an AeroPress as demonstrated by the 2017 World Champion:
