How a Stanford Professor Made A Really Good One-Cup Coffee Maker

Have you ever had a cup of coffee made with an AeroPress? A friend made me a cup once and, yes, it was a very good cup of coffee (I didn’t run out and get one though — I’ve stood by my French Press for many years). Priceonomics has a great post on the invention of the AeroPress by Stanford professor Alan Adler, who also invented the Aerobie, the frisbee with the hole in it:

The AeroPress was conceived at Alan Adler’s dinner table. The company was having a team meal, when the wife of Aerobie’s sales manager posed a question: “What do you guys do when you just want one cup of coffee?”

A long-time coffee enthusiast and self-proclaimed “one cup kinda guy,” Adler had wondered this many times himself. He’d grown increasingly frustrated with his coffee maker, which yielded 6–8 cups per brew. In typical Adler fashion, he didn’t let the problem bother him long: he set out to invent a better way to brew single cup of coffee.

And the rest is history (which can be read here).

Aerobie Photo: Jason Rogers

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