AeroPress vs. French Press: Two Great, but Different, Brews

If you just look at an AeroPress and French Press in action, especially during the final part of brewing with them, you’d think they have one big thing in common: that you’re pushing down to separate the brewed coffee from the grounds. But there are also a lot of important differences between them.

Our goal here is to cover and illuminate those differences a bit more clearly in our French Press versus AeroPress showdown.

The TL;DR Table

Perhaps the most prominent difference between the French Press and AeroPress is their relative ages. While slightly modern improvements have certainly changed French presses over time, this coffee brewer was invented in the 1800s, well over 170 years ago.

The much longer history of the French press leads to much of the difference between them today.

I’m going to nerd out more about this (and more) below, but I know some people are in a hurry. So here’s by quick-summary of most of the points I make at greater length later.

	French Press	AeroPress
Brew method	Full immersion	Immersion with pressure
Filter type	Metal mesh	Usually paper
Typical brew time	4-5 minutes	2-3 minutes
Grind size	Coarse	Medium-fine
Coffee ratio	15:1	15-17:1
Brewed capacity	300-1,800 mL	200-500 mL
Body	Heavy and rich	Medium body
Clarity	Lower	Higher
Sediment	Noticeable	Very little
Flavor profile	Oils, texture, fuller mouthfeel	Cleaner, brighter, more defined
Cleanup	Scoop, rinse, and scrub	Pop out the puck and rinse
Portability	Bulky	Extremely portable
Best for	Brewing for multiple people	Brewing one great cup
Learning curve	Very easy	Easy, but endlessly customizable
Typical price	$10-$180	Usually $40-$60
Our pick for camping	Only if it’s a durable model	The clear winner
Our pick for coffee nerds	The traditionalist	The experimenter

What is the French press?

History of the French press: It’s One Old Dude

The French press was first patented in 1852 by inventors Henri-Otto Mayer and Jacques-Victor Delforge. The early versions used cloth or cheesecloth mesh, and weren’t nearly so tight around the sides as their modern descendants, letting more grounds pass up into the brewed coffee.

But the basic brew method was the same: combine coffee and water in a pitcher, after a few minutes plunge the coffee down to the bottom, then pour out from the top the brewed coffee.

In 1929, Attilio Calimani patented a tighter fit on the edges of the brewer to let fewer grounds up. And the spring-around the edge design (which is still quite common today) was added in the in the 1930s. In a 1958 redesign, Faliero Bondanini’s made further improvements.

Marketed as the Melior, it exploded in popularity in European cafes. Since then brands like Bodum have distributed the iconic glass-and-steel plunger pot worldwide, cementing its “French” identity.

Through all of that the same basic qualities of the brew were the same: brewing with a clever but simple way to segregate the coffee grounds from the final brew. Crucially, always a screen-like, less-absorbent filter. This is why the French press is so much “richer” than the paper filtered coffee that you get with drip coffee machines, pour overs, and the AeroPress. So let’s go there next…

How to make French press coffee

The nice thing about a French press is that it doesn’t ask much of you. There’s no special pouring technique to learn and no paper filters to keep stocked. Add coffee, add water, wait a few minutes, and press.

Here’s my typical routine:

1. Heat your water. A gooseneck kettle isn’t necessary here. In fact, if you already own a regular stovetop kettle, I’d save the fancy one for pour-over days.
2. Measure your coffee and water. I usually brew with a 15:1 ratio because the math is easy and the results are consistently good. For a larger batch, that might mean 40 grams of coffee and 600 grams of water.
3. Grind your beans fairly coarse. Think breadcrumbs or coarse sea salt. On my Baratza Encore, I’m usually somewhere around a 30.
4. Combine the coffee and water. Add your grounds to the carafe, pour in the water, and give everything a quick stir to make sure all the grounds are saturated.
5. Let it steep. Four minutes is my usual starting point, though anywhere between 3 and 5 minutes will work for most people. If you enjoy tinkering, you can always experiment with longer brew times.
6. Press the plunger slowly. Once the coffee has finished steeping, lower the plunger until the grounds are separated from the brewed coffee.
7. Serve immediately. This is one place where I’m a little stubborn. I try to pour everything out right away instead of letting brewed coffee continue sitting on top of the grounds. Leave it there long enough, and bitterness tends to creep in.

Of course, technique only gets you so far. Starting with freshly roasted beans will probably improve your coffee more than any adjustment you make to your brewing process.

Our favorite French presses

There are an absurd number of French presses on the market, and honestly, most of them do the same basic job.

When I’m shopping for one, I care much more about capacity, durability, and materials than I do about the logo stamped on the side. Do you need something for one person? A crowd? Camping? Your answers to those questions matter far more than the brand.

Here are a few we’ve used, tested, or have sitting somewhere on our coffee wish list:

• Bodum Chambord (34 oz): The classic. Glass, metal, timeless design.
• OXO Outdoor French Press: Lightweight, durable, and practically begging to be thrown into a camp gear.
• Bodum Brazil (12 oz): One of the least expensive ways to get into French press coffee.
• YETI Rambler (64 oz): Completely overbuilt in the most YETI way possible. It’s enormous, practically indestructible, and perfect if you’re making coffee for several people at once.

French press accessories worth having

You don’t need much to make excellent French press coffee, but a few tools make the process easier.

• Fresh coffee beans. You’ll eventually develop strong opinions about roasters, origins, flavor profiles, and the best coffee for French press.
• A coffee scale.
• A kettle.
• A quality grinder. Freshly ground coffee makes a dramatic difference. We generally recommend a burr grinder, and the Baratza Encore remains our default recommendation.
• Whatever you add to your coffee. Cream, sugar, maple syrup, cinnamon, oat milk—go wild. Although, if you’re feeling adventurous, I’d still encourage you to spend a little time figuring out how you enjoy black coffee, too.

What is the AeroPress?

AeroPress history: It’s like a Little Plastic Baby

The AeroPress as I write this is less than 25 years old. That makes it less than a seventh as old as the French press. That doesn’t make it any less beloved. I’d even go so far as to say that a modern coffee nerd is likely to like the AeroPress more. Part of this, to be sure, is its explicit lack of history.

Alan Adler was a Stanford engineering lecturer, and designed the flying-distance-record-breaking Aerobie flying ring. (Which as you might surmise, broke records previous set with solid discs most popularly known as “frisbees.”)

Adler wanted a fast way to brew full-bodied coffee with less bitterness and acidity than drip machines or French presses. He launched the product in 2005, via the Aerobie company. That was, also you’ve probably noticed, the source of the name.

The AeroPress, for the unfamiliar, has you build a stack which is a basket-holder, a paper filter, and then a brew chamber. This you place above a mug, and add the grounds and water to the cylinder. After you’ve added the desired amount of both, you add a plunger (another cylinder) to the top.

You typically let this stack — brew cylinder, water & coffee mixture, and plunger providing the back-pressure to stop the (minimal) dripping — for a few minutes. Then you press down on the top of the plunger, and out the bottom into your cup comes the perfectly brewed coffee. This single-cup nature is both the best and worst feature of the AeroPress.

Its brewing capacity is another clear differentiator from the French press, which easily brews multiple cups of coffee at once in the pitcher.

AeroPress took off!

Coffee nerds slowly became obsessed with the AeroPress. Though small changes in design happened over time (the plastic went BPA-free in 2009), much of the diversity you see around AeroPress came from a very different source. That source was the coffee nerds just trying stuff and thinking/selling their new subtly different way of making a cup of coffee with the brewer as better.

This trend comes to its apogee in the World AeroPress Championships. Started as a small and ironic annual tournament, it has become a claim to fame for many coffee nerds over the years.

Also relevant to its history, AeroPress was sold by Adler (advancing in age and looking to retire) to a company called Tiny in 2021. This has led to a great diversity in “official” AeroPress brewers. We ran down the differences between the classic AeroPress, AeroPress Go, and AeroPress Go Plus, but today you’ll also find a plastic-free version, a bigger one, and lots of color-ways.

How to make AeroPress coffee at home

One of the reasons coffee people become so obsessed with the AeroPress is that there isn’t really one “correct” recipe.

There’s the standard method. The inverted method. Concentrate recipes. Bypass recipes. Championship recipes. Recipes that require a spreadsheet and a protractor. (Okay, maybe not a protractor.)

This is the straightforward, low-key method I use most often.

1. Heat your water. Unlike pour over, you don’t need to obsess over your pouring technique. Get your water hot, and you’re already most of the way there.
2. Prepare the AeroPress. Insert a paper filter into the cap and twist it onto the brewing chamber. Some people rinse the filter first to remove any papery taste. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don’t. The coffee still turns out fine.
3. Grind and add your coffee. I usually brew with 15-18 grams of coffee for a single mug. On my Baratza Encore, that’s typically somewhere in the low-to-mid teens.
4. Add your water. Pour the water directly over the grounds until you reach your desired amount. One of the things I love about the AeroPress is that it’s far more forgiving than many coffee nerds would have you believe.
5. Give it a quick stir and let it brew. I usually stir a few times and wait for about two minutes. You can shorten or extend that time depending on how strong you like your coffee.
6. Press slowly. Place the AeroPress over your mug and apply steady pressure until you hear the familiar hissing sound near the end.
7. Enjoy the easiest cleanup in coffee. Unscrew the cap, eject the compressed puck into the trash or compost, give everything a quick rinse, and you’re done.

Recommended AeroPress brewers

The funny thing about AeroPress is that for years there was basically one choice.

Not anymore.

Since the company changed ownership, the lineup has expanded quite a bit. Which version you should buy mostly depends on where you plan to use it.

• AeroPress Original: The classic model
• AeroPress Go: Packs into its own travel cup
• AeroPress Go Plus: Includes an insulated travel tumbler
• AeroPress XL: Nearly double the brewing capacity

Recommended AeroPress accessories

The AeroPress doesn’t require much, but a few additions make it even more enjoyable.

• Fresh coffee beans. The AeroPress does a fantastic job of highlighting differences between coffees, so it’s a great excuse to start exploring different roasters.
• A burr grinder. Freshly ground coffee is still the biggest upgrade you can make. We continue to recommend the Baratza Encore for most home brewers.
• Extra filters. You’ll eventually need more.
• A kettle.
• A coffee scale.
• A sturdy travel mug. The AeroPress and travel coffee practically belong together.

Pick French over AeroPress because…

You don’t really need to pick between a French press and AeroPress. Both can be purchased for well under 100 dollars. If you’re a eager coffee nerd curious about both, I’d encourage you to try both out.

But if you’ve got both, or if you’re picking between them (at a very nerdy and specific) cafe, here are things that I think would lead me to pick the French press over the AeroPress.

You love “rich coffee”

As I’ve mentioned, modern French presses are usually filtered by a metal screen. AeroPress coffee is (usually) filtered with a small round single-use paper filter.

As a result you’ll find many more dissolved solids and oils on a French press.

You’re brewing for a crowd

While it is possible to brew more than one cup with an AeroPress (especially the AeroPress XL), for a crowd of 3 or more I find the AeroPress too much work. Not so with a French press, where assuming you’ve got a big enough one, you’ll easily scale. And they also sell some big French presses (Exhibit A, Exhibit B) so that you could make coffee for 4-8 people no problem.

You want to collect 100+ versions of the same brewer

This advantage has changed in the last few years as AeroPress’s new ownership has increased the diversity of colors and materials. But even now, AeroPress has nothing in the diversity and material-types of French press coffee brewers.

Just about every reasonable combination of colors and materials can be found without much effort if you’re looking.

Where AeroPress beats French press

There are a whole host of reasons to pick the AeroPress over the French press. Here are the ones I think worth highlighting…

You value compactness

The biggest reason I’d pick an AeroPress is that even the original or the new biggest ones are smaller than just about any French press I’ve ever seen. This is a lot down to the fact that the brew materials nest together.

Add to that you’re only brewing one cup at a time in most AeroPress recipes, and it simple outcompetes the French press for smallness. But I’d much rather pack my AeroPress Go for a trip than a French press.

You prefer “lighter” coffee

As I mentioned, the French press lets in more “silt” than an AeroPress. This is especially true if you’re using the typical paper filters on the AeroPress. So it’s not that the AeroPress is the most refined and delicate brewing method, I’d say pour over is. But you get more “clarity” from an AeroPress than you do from a French press.

And that also means that the coffee feels lighter. (It doesn’t make a dark roast lighter or anything though ;p)

You want to be in on coffee nerd trends

Especially taken collectively over the last 20 years, the AeroPress is so much more “the talk of the town” among coffee nerds than the French press is. While AeroPress’s newness-luster is starting to fade, it’s still much more likely that you’ll find a coffee nerd interested in sharing their custom brew recipe than you will the tried-and-true French press.

Plus, non-coffee-nerds are much more confused by the AeroPress than the French press!

What about pour over?

If you’re still stuck between the French press and AeroPress, there’s a third option that deserves a seat at the table: the pour over.

In many ways, the AeroPress sits right between the other two brewers.

• Like a French press, the AeroPress is an immersion brewer. The coffee and water spend time together before you separate the grounds from the finished cup.
• Like a pour over, the AeroPress usually relies on a paper filter, which produces a cleaner cup with much less sediment.

But a traditional pour over is still the king of flavor clarity.

Read more: French press vs. pour over »

Honestly, Two great options

While the French press was a “classic” brewer well before my grandparents were born, the AeroPress is younger than I am. This leads the AeroPress to have a “cooler” vibe than the French press among coffee snobs (even low-key ones like us). But it doesn’t change the basic fact that they both make good coffee.

Surely if you’re an experimenter, the existence of an event called the World AeroPress Championship could be a good/fun place to work on that. I know of no similar tournaments for the French press, likely precisely because it has a much more storied history.

Overall, you can’t really go wrong here. I like to brew with both of these, and for different reasons. For crowds, I’ll always pick a French press. Solo, I’ll always pick an AeroPress. But I also sometimes appreciate the richness of the French press more, and at other times the greater taste nuance I can find in the AeroPress.

And I do love our iced AeroPress recipe.

Which one do you want to add to your at-home coffee set up?