Introduction: How to Make Coffee by Means of an Aeropress Gizmo

A daunting and beautiful process. Allow us to assist you and reap the rewards.

Step 1: Make Your Own Cup of Coffee

One may wish the activity to be supported by a Žižek lecture, music, or friendly and philosophical conversation. I most often feel that coffee making deserves the accompaniment of pleasurable and pensive cello music, such as a Rachmaninoff or Pärt composition. 
However, if this should be a cup of coffee to be had in the morning, "Make Your Own Kind of Music" by Cass Elliot of the Mamas and the Papas is most desired. 

Step 2: Tools

Once in the zone, survey the components of the apparati. 

Step 3: Snag the Little Round Sheet

Remove a small round parchment filter from your stack to cover the drain with. 

Step 4: Apply It to the Drain

Place the parchment filter on drain. The coffee grounds, once in the apparatus, will rest on the parchment, which in turn rests on the drain. However, the parchment is the essential actor in the drainage process, and the drain piece is only to support its activity. The parchment is a thin paper which allows liquid to pass through its fibers, but not solid material, and the drain attachment will hold the parchment in place while allowing water to also pass through it, but the attachment is not used to filter the liquid from the grounds. 

Step 5: Screw Drain Into Capsule

The drain attachment, accompanied by the parchment, should then be screwed into place at the lipped mouth of the Aeropress capsule. The way this sort of screwing works is that the drain attachment should be placed in such a way that its teeth be between the teeth of the capsule, pushed into a sort of track in the mouth of the capsule and turned so that the teeth of the attachment will be at least somewhat aligned with the teeth of the capsule. This will allow the attachment to be held in the mouth of the capsule.

Step 6: Choose Your Coffee

I don't know too much about coffee beans, personally, but the particular ground (you either call the mix a ground or a roast, not sure) that I'm using must be a lighter roast, judging from its color, but it's got sort of mocha notes, and it isn't tangy. Coffee always tastes pretty gnarly to me, though.

Step 7: Scoop It

The kind packagers of aeropress decided to do us the favor of providing a scooper, a real deep one, but not wide. Scoop some coffee grounds, however much you please. I tend to enjoy two scoops for my 10 or so ounces of midday coffee. One's preference is likely to be heavily contingent on their desired caffeine content and intensity of flavor, which will also depend on the type of grounds that one should use.

Step 8: Dump It

Dump your grounds into the capsule.The depth of the scooper, compensating for a lack of width, actually, should make it easier to not spill its contents over the sides of the capsule, as the radius of the former is much smaller than the radius of the latter. Imagine trying to use a wide spoon, as for example one might use for consumption of soup, for pouring your grounds into the capsule. One would end up making a terrible mess, and wasting both coffee and time.

Step 9: Put It on Cup

Put your whole capsule on top of the cup, oriented so that the draining bin is being held right below the rim of the cup and the whole capsule is suspended by its lip, which rests on the rim of the cup; if your capsule is oriented in such a way that the draining bin is at the top of your apparatus, then the grounds will have fallen into the cup and you will have to pour them out of your cup and into the capsule again, and reverse the direction of your capsule, but not your cup. In fact, seeing as there is no such lip on the open mouth of the capsule, it is obvious that that orientation will not hold the capsule above the cup. However, if one were to led astray by the thought that the grounds should first be poured into the cup from which the coffee is to be drunk, that is a misunderstanding to be forgiven. If one wants a smooth drink of coffee, the ideal would be to have no grounds at all in the final mix. I think the way it works is that the hot water cooks and thereby extracts the essence of the ground, but will leave all solid material behind it by means of the drain.

Step 10: Water

Safely pour hot water into the capsule. The water should be hot, because I believe that that is how flavor is extracted, but apparently, if it is too hot, it may extract more elements than may be desired, and make the coffee more bitter than intended, for example. An interesting topic that deserves further reading. 

Step 11: Stir

Science tells us that stirring yields results. The magic is in the mixing. Elements react when agitated. Lavoisier did it.  A nice, smooth, even-looking mix looks proper, anyhow. Thanks be to Aeropress, again, for the utensil.

Step 12: Cook + Wipe

Wipe off your stirrer while you allow your water to extract flavor for a couple minutes.

Step 13: Put in Pump

Plunge the pump into the capsule. There is only one orientation that is allowed by the device. 

Step 14: Press the Aer

Use the plunger to push the air in the capsule, which in turn will push the liquid through the grains and through the drain and into your cup. Push it down all the way in order to really squeeze out all the flavored water.

Despite its contrary appearance (or lack thereof), 'air' is a substance. A mixture of nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, argon, and small amounts of other gases with a very low density, which allows for its near irrelevant presence in the world. Philosopher, theologist, and physicist Blaise Pascal proposed the image of a sea of air resting on the surface of the earth and its liquid oceans, similar to the oceans of water, a fluid of a much higher density, which occupy the basins of the earth's surface. 
In the same way that any volume of water will resist compression, the volume, or weight, of air that is caught in capsule of the Aeropress under the pressure applied with the pump will force the water, which is the densest substance in the apparatus, through the less dense mix of coffee grounds and parchment and into the cup, since the water offers the most resistance to the mass of the air being pushed. 

Further reading in Blaise Pascal's Treatise on the Equilibrium of Liquids or Treatise on the Weight of the Mass of the Air is recommended.

Step 15: Dispose

Before you enjoy your coffee, while holding the apparatus over a trashcan, unscrew the drainage compartment from the capsule and wipe it off. With the drain removed from the capsule, be careful not to agitate the the apparatus if not held over a trash can, as the coffee grounds are still inside, no longer resting on the drain. Push the pump further in order to force the wet grounds out of the capsule and into the trash or whatever sort of receptacle one might prefer.

Step 16: Wipe Again

Wipe off the plunger of the pump so that it may be clean for the next person to want to use the Aeropress.

Step 17: Additives

Add water, sugar, cream or milk (soy or almond recommended) to your coffee so that it might be more desirable. Many people, especially those with more youthful palates, are not fond of bitter tastes, and may opt to cut the attack of the coffee's flavor with milk or cream. The flavor is not usually affected very much, but rather dulls the sharp bitterness of the coffee and makes it more agreeable to the taste buds. I, personally, have a strong aversion to sharp and bitter tastes, and so, often, in addition to a splash of almond or soy milk, will add a good amount of sugar. This sort of treatment of coffee is often looked down on, due to the cultural connotations that a drink like coffee carries with it, but one should never fear or feel obliged to comply to the suppositions of any artificial intellectualism. 

Once added, follow Lavoisier's example and stir.

Step 18: C'est La Coffie

When one has finished with their production, their coffee may be sold, donated, or enjoyed alongside a savory wheat-based vegan snack. I would also advise one to be aware of drinking enough water, as coffee is very dehydrating.

Step 19: Get Back to Work

One of the most viable reasons for drinking coffee in the day, anyhow. Don't drink to much, as caffeine is highly addictive, despite being a socially acceptable recreational drug.