Best Coffee for AeroPress

AeroPress is a dream coffee maker. Small, light, cheap, and capable of producing top-tier coffee. Armed with your AeroPress and the mountain of YouTube videos offering tips, you can really up your home coffee game. But to make a great cup of coffee, you need to use the best coffee for AeroPress.

For me, the best choice is Volcanica’s Yirgacheffe. These super aromatic beans have been grown at high altitudes for perfect ripeness. The medium/light roast allows you to taste the truly unique style of Ethiopian coffee. And the AeroPress is perfect for extracting all that great flavor.

Taste is subjective though and no matter what your coffee bean preferences are, there are so many great options you can choose from. To help you make that choice, we’ve picked out a diverse range of coffee beans specifically for AeroPress brewing. So there’s something for everyone.

Ethiopia Yirgacheffe, Volcanica (Best Overall)

The best coffee to use for AeroPress (in my oh so humble opinion) is, suitably, from the birthplace of Arabica coffee:

Ethiopian coffee is like no other with intense fruit aromatics and floral notes that are delightful and surprising. I’ve been in the coffee game a long time now but understand that those who’re just starting out sometimes doubt how different coffee beans can taste or that they even truly have a ‘flavor profile’. If this is you, coffee from Ethiopia is the best place to start to see just how unique different beans can be.

Volcanica is a family-run coffee business that sources amazing coffee from all over the world. Their Yirgacheffe coffee is grown at an average altitude of 6500 feet asl to ensure slow ripening of the coffee cherries and the development of more complex flavors.

It’s also USDA Organic certified – Yirgacheffe has a very high percentage of organic and Fair Trade farms compared to most coffee-growing regions. Here, the farmers are committed to traditional farming methods that are sustainable for them and for the environment.

As well as bright berry flavors, this coffee has notes of lemon and tea.

Just be careful of your brewing time – the delicate flavors can easily be lost if you brew for a few seconds too long (particularly if you use them for both AeroPress and French Press brewing.)

Queen Ketiara, Equator Coffees (Runner-Up)

Sumatran coffee isn’t for everyone:

The wet-hulled processing (where the coffee is dried without the parchment on), greatly lowers acidity and gives earthy and spicy flavors to the beans. This makes it a truly unique style of coffee that any AeroPress user should at least try.

The Queen Ketiara is purchased solely from woman-owned cooperative farms in the Gayo Highlands of Aceh, Sumatra. The “Queen” designation is given as the coffee is sold for a higher price which in turns puts money into programs that specifically help local women.

With big notes of chocolate, clove, and tobacco balanced with the sweetness of orange and vanilla. This is an enchanting coffee that gives a truly unique flavor and shows off the best characteristics of one of the most beautiful parts of the world.

Huehuetenango, Altruistic Joe

Guatemalan coffee tends to be bright, fruity, and sweet – a combination that makes it one of the best coffees for AeroPress. This single-origin coffee from the Huehuetenango region (near the Mexican border) shows this style at its best.

Grown by a father and son team on their 120-hectare farm, the bourbon and caturra trees (different types of Arabica coffee) are shade-grown for perfect ripening.

This commitment to quality results in coffee that is sweet with chocolate and nougat notes that are balanced by bright tropical fruits and fresh acidity. It’s a great option for anyone looking for something bright yet complex.

Bourbon, Spirit Animal

Spirit Animal is one of our favorite coffee companies due to their extremely high-quality coffee and their commitment to the communities that grow it. They roast their coffee at source in Honduras meaning as much of the coffee value as possible stays in the country. It goes straight into the hands of the communities that grow the coffee, instead of going to a 3rd party roaster elsewhere.

This Bourbon coffee is grown at over 5,000 feet asl by Yuliana Hernandez in the Marcala region of Honduras. Yuliana is committed to sustainable farming practices and improving the community through her coffee business.

The resulting coffee is exceptional with white wine, tropical fruit, cacao, and nut flavors. It’s not just us who love it – it also received an amazing 89/100 cup score.

If you like to switch up your brewing methods, these beans are also great in a V60/Chemex as well as the AeroPress.

100% Kona Decaf, Koa Coffee (Best Decaf)

From the world-famous Kona region on the big island of Hawai’i comes a truly stunning coffee.

The unique microclimate creates a Central American-style coffee with a little more spice. The low acidity and prominent fruit flavors can give the impression of sweetness and make the Kona region particularly special for coffee.

The Swiss-Water Process means you can get this amazing flavor without the caffeine. It uses water and charcoal to remove the caffeine meaning no chemicals whilst still retaining all the same amazing flavor as the caffeinated version.

Koa coffee offers only top-quality Hawaiian coffee and their medium roast options work perfectly with your AeroPress (or Chemex). With floral and citrus notes on the nose, you get a luscious mouthfeel with hints of dried fruit, brown sugar, and delicate spices.

As with all coffee, the best one to buy is the one you enjoy the most. If you love a certain mass-produced coffee by a famous retailer then keep buying it. (Though we’d urge you to dig a little deeper into their ethics.)

If you’re looking for some advice on how to find a coffee you’ll love brewing with your AeroPress, then we’ve got some tips to help you out:

What’s the Best Roast for AeroPress?

Light to medium is the best roast to use with your AeroPress. As the AeroPress coffee maker uses a combination of steeping, pressure, and filtration to brew, it can extract the flavor from lighter roasted beans more easily than other brewing methods like an espresso machine.

The lighter roasting style shows off the unique characteristics of the different growing regions. So they’re the best ones to buy when you’re experimenting with new coffees or want to taste the different flavors of coffee from around the world.

That said, if you love a more bitter and smoky dark roast, then they’ll also be delicious with your AeroPress. You do you.

Processing Method

There isn’t really a ‘best’ processing method for the AeroPress. The way the coffee beans are processed will change the flavor quite dramatically, but they’ll all work well with your AeroPress.

Washed processed coffees tend to show more of the characteristics of the growing region so we like those for trying out new coffee. Other processing methods can add sweetness, lower acidity, add spice, or more complex aromas and flavors.

Understanding different coffee processing methods can help you understand what you’re likely to taste in your cup. It’s best to experiment and see what you like.

Which Coffee Region is Best for AeroPress?

Where your coffee is produced obviously makes a huge impact on how it will taste:

Different growing regions give different combinations of elevation, heat, sunlight, rain, soil, and temperature variation. All these contribute to the final taste of the coffee.

As both a coffee and wine nerd (ex-Sommelier and former Barista) this all makes perfect sense to me. But I understand it can be confusing and looks like marketing BS.

There isn’t one region that reigns superior over all the others in terms of the famous coffee-growing areas of East Africa, Latin America, and South East Asia. It’s all about personal preference.

I prefer Ethiopia as the coffee from there is intensely aromatic, complex, fruity, and slightly winey in character. But the best coffee I’ve ever had was a Panama Geisha, brewed once with an AeroPress and once with a V60 so I could compare. I still think about these two cups of coffee on a daily basis.

Try a wide variety if you’re not sure where your perfect cup will come from.

Certifications

We all want to make sure we’re buying coffee that’s good for the environment and that the people who grow it are fairly paid. This is where things like Organic certifications, Fair Trade, Rainforest Alliance, Direct Trade, and so on come in.

Buying ethical coffee is complex. Some of the certifications aren’t really that meaningful whilst others require the grower to file a lot of expensive paperwork (which many can’t afford). And some aren’t certifications at all, merely PR meant to sound like one (like Direct Trade.)

Choosing a responsible roaster with a transparent supply chain is the best way to ensure you’re getting coffee that isn’t exploitative or harming the environment. If they don’t have this, there’s a good chance they’re bulk buying green coffee on the open market and who knows where that has come from or under what circumstances it has been grown. (👀 Looking at you Nespresso.)

As a starting point, we’ve outlined the two methods that we like to use. But the great thing about the AeroPress is that you can endlessly tweak your process until you find your perfect brewing method. Or have a search through Aeroprecipe.com for inspo.

Classic Method

1. Remove the plunger from the chamber, put a filter in the filter cap, rinse with water, and twist it into place
2. Place the AeroPress on your mug
3. Add 15g of “fine drip” ground coffee to the chamber
4. Fill to level 2 with water at 175°F (80°C)
5. Stir for 10 seconds
6. Insert the plunger and press down slowly for around 30 seconds
7. Dilute the finished coffee with water or milk to taste

Inverted Method

1. Place a filter in the filter cap and rinse with hot water
2. Attach the plunger to the main chamber and place the AeroPress upside down. It should easily balance on the plunger with the filter cap end facing up.
3. Add 14g of “fine drip” ground coffee to the brewing chamber
4. Add 200g of water just off the boil to the chamber
5. Stir and attach the filter cap
6. Place your cup on the top of the AeroPress and flip the whole thing over so the AeroPress is now sitting on top of your coffee cup
7. Remove the plunger and give the coffee a quick stir
8. Replace the plunger and slowly press down until you hear a hiss – it should take around 30 seconds
9. Your coffee is ready to drink. You can add 1-2 oz of water if it’s too strong

For those after a specific recommendation then we think Volcanica’s Ethiopia Yorgacheffe is the best coffee for AeroPress. But the most fun part about owning an AeroPress is trying different coffee beans and different brewing methods to find your favorite.

So go wild with it!

Matt Woodburn-Simmonds

Matt's coffee obsession started in 2006 when working as a Barista. A tendency to turn up to work hungover kickstarted his coffee journey which quickly turned into a love affair. As he moved on to work as a Restaurant Manager and Sommelier, the obsession continued to grow. Now, his passion is helping others to enjoy better coffee at home.