The Beginning - A short-story written by Robin Salten

In the year 2005 after a fifteen-year-long passion for espresso and cappuccino I registered the arising abundance of the most various specialty coffees. I wanted to understand what was behind this and so I began to try out different coffee beans.

Quite quickly it became obvious that the espresso machine was perhaps not the best preparation method to experience the differences between coffees. This was mainly for practical reasons. Anyone who grapples intensively with the preparation of espresso knows that with a change of coffee the degree of grinding must be adapted to the new coffee. And this process consumes a certain amount of coffee in order to find the perfect degree of fineness.

Still I wanted to understand what was behind all these different coffee beans. That was why I began to try out various methods for preparing coffee and thus realized that simply brewing was much less complicated and more condoning of mistakes than espresso preparation. Beyond that it was much easier to taste out the varying coffee aromas than with the literally compressed tasting experience of an espresso.

Hence a fascinating excursion through the world of coffee aromas and manifold flavours began. I never would have dreamed what awaited me after I had not only pushed open the door to specialty coffees but also to the diversity of brewed coffee. I quickly learned that coffee flavor is not defined primarily by the brand, but -similarly to wine- by the nuances of taste through variety, growing area, ground conditions, altitude and so forth.

If you have to do with a coffee which is graded by variety, harvested at the perfect degree of ripeness, cleanly processed and then also gently roasted to the point, then you realize: it makes sense to occupy yourself more intensively with manual brewing methods. A coffee brewed by the parameter of beans to water ratio, brewing temperature, and contact time between water and coffee can differ immensely in taste.

This diversity can best express itself with the use of manual brewing methods.This diversity can best express itself with the use of manual brewing methods.

In the year 2006 I stumbled over a device which I at first found rather disconcerting. It consisted of a plastic cylinder, a stamper and a filter holder and had been introduced to the American market as the coffee and espresso maker AeroPress.

The inventor and engineer Alan Adler developed the AeroPress in 2005 as a product of his own personal wish for making good coffee. Alan Adler is among other things the inventor of Aerobie Pro-Rings and founder of the company Aerobie Inc.

Da die AeroPress zu diesem Zeitpunkt in Europa quasi nicht angeboten wurde, bestellte ich das Gerät, trotz meiner Skepsis, in den USA. Nachdem ich ein wenig damit herumprobiert hatte wurde mir klar, dass es sich um das ideale Gerät handelt, um dem Charakter unterschiedlicher Kaffees wirklich auf den Grund zu gehen.

Since the AeroPress was at that point in time practically not available in Europe I decided in spite of my scepticism to order the device in the USA. After some trial and error I realized that this was the ideal device to really get down to the bottom of the difference in character of diverse coffees. Aside from the verifiable preparation parameters of other preparation devices the AeroPress had one further one - the pressure. In that with the AeroPress the hot water is pressed through the filter by the stamper it is possible to choose the degree of grinding independently of the intended contact time between water and coffee.

In spite of my prejudices I began to appreciate the new possibilities that the AeroPress opened up for me.

After I saw that even two years later the AeroPress had still not managed the bound over the Atlantic, the thought began to grow in me to import the device myself and to sell it wholesale to coffee roasters.

I began to work out a concept to build up the connection between producers and coffee roasters and finally in 2009 founded BESTbrew. Next to the retail for pottery demands which I had already had for ten years I started to import the first AeroPress on the same premises.

Aside from my desire to busy myself with something that I really enjoyed my primary wish was to make the AeroPress known in the DACH-countries. Especially this should give small roasters who dealt with specialty coffees the possibility to offer their clients a practical preparation device with which they could really experience the specific diversity in the tastes of different coffees.

Just as it probably is for many people who start a company out of their own enthusiasm and completely ignore the fact that they have no market for their product, it was the same for me. I did not reap the same excitement over the article that I had, on the contrary I met mainly scepticism and sometimes downright rejection.

That was why I began to build up contact to other producers of innovative and useful coffee preparation tools and why in 2010 the collaboration with the Japanese producer Hario began.

Fortunately I did in the long run meet, next to the sceptics, just as many mostly young people who were fascinated by specialty coffee. With great enthusiasm they opened “Third Wave” coffee shops and organized events out of which a very vigorous specialty coffee scene emerged. Their strong dedication transmitted the spirit of specialty coffee. From the beginning I supported their efforts as well as possible with brewing devices of all kinds. As of 2012 a substantial market for specialty coffee had developed and with that a market for manual preparation devices as well.