I took a month long break from using the Presso, starting 2012 off just using an Aeropress. I had a mix of coffees to try, a few leftover home roasts from the end of 2011 that I had originally used with the Presso, some store bought coffee, and most recently a week old home roast of Colombia Giraldo Exotico. Some of the cups were very good, but over the course of using the different coffees I begin to consider that the paper filter must be blocking some key flavor elements I was looking for. So I switched over to using my glass French Press which had been gathering dust. Got some good cups from the FP, but still a little short of what I hoped.
So this weekend I did some head to head testing, where I would drink cups made from each brewer with the same beans on the same day. The conclusion was that I liked Presso cup the best, as it gave the broadest flavor profile. In all cases I was drinking what would otherwise be considered a typical American cup of coffee, a little strong but not as strong as a European cup, without any milk or sugar. I am pretty sure I could better dial in my French Press and improve the cup, but in comparison to the Presso it takes longer to brew and is more difficult to clean up the spent grinds. When using the Presso I took a very simple approach, no preheating of the brewer, just preheating the cup for 10-15 seconds, then adding the water straight off the boil (minus this 10-15 seconds delay that was used to preheat the cup), and pressing. Doing two quick pumps without any special care to the technique, where the first pump was to build up some pressure and get the flow going, and the second pump would be held at the bottom for a maybe 5 seconds until the stream would start to tamper off. The Columbia Giraldo was a year old green bean, medium roasted and not very acidic. But the increased brightness was very noticeable with the Presso as compared to the French Press. I am not ready to give up on the French Press, as the choice of coffee origin, my grinder, water temps, are variables I need to look at, but if if the cup was as good, the extra brew time, mud, and cleanup would still weigh down its appeal. Even without a metal filter like the Coava Disk I like the Aeropress, but the resulting cup is quite different from the Presso.
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