AeroPress

Engineer Alan Adler spent months in 2003 studying coffee brewing variables in his Palo Alto garage, frustrated by his own bad home-brewer experiences. After more than 30 prototypes, he introduced the AeroPress coffee maker at Coffee Fest Seattle in November 2005. Adler used air pressure to shorten brew time and reduce bitterness, compressing flavor more quickly from the grounds. He holds over 40 patents and previously designed instrumentation for nuclear reactors and submarines, taught sensors courses at Stanford, and set a Guinness World Record with the Aerobie flying ring he invented in the 1980s.

Coffee fans Tim Wendelboe and Tim Varney organized the first World AeroPress Championship in 2008 at Wendelboe's Oslo microroastery with just three competitors. By 2023 the grassroots competition had grown to over 5,000 entrants across 178 national and regional events. Tiny Ltd. acquired AeroPress in summer 2021 and has since expanded the product line to include the XL, the Go Plus travel system, and the Premium glass and metal press.