Michael Butterworth

After years of being the favorite scapegoat of baristas everywhere, coffee professionals are recognizing anew that automatic consumer coffee makers are not that bad. In fact, when it comes to the class of SCA-certified brewers, like the Bonavita 1901 series or the iconic Techivorm Moccamaster, you would be hard pressed to get better results with a pour-over

Almost every major player in the Istanbul coffee scene has a Nişantaşı outpost now, but the upscale neighborhood on the city’s In the year since I wrote a neighborhood guide for Sprudge, Nişantaşı has seen half a dozen new shops open. On my first visit I enjoyed an espresso, a surprisingly bright Brazil roasted by Troika and pulled on Habitude’s shiny, new Modbar AV. With its elegant bar and friendly baristas, Habitude Artisan Patisserie and Cafe is just one more reason Nişantaşı residents are spoiled for choice when it comes to coffee shops.

In the world of coffee brewers, there’s a pretty big gap between SCA-certified home brewers, like the Bonavita 1900 series or the Technivorm Moccamaster, and commercial brewers, which need to be plumbed and sometimes even hardwired. Last year, faced with a catering job for 50+ people, we picked up a Marco Bru F45m, a manual-fill coffee brewer capable of brewing up to 1.8 liter batches. Every brewing device has an ideal brewing capacity, and the sweet spot for the Marco Bru 45 seams to be around 1.5 liter batches (with a 90 gram dose). Simply put, it far out performs other brewers in this category, like the larger Technovorm brewers and even commercial brewers like Fetco.

The theory behind our iced Aeropress recipe is very similar to our December Dripper guide: extend the contact time to help compensate for the more concentrated brew ratio. Like an iced pour-over, we’re flash-chilling hot-brewed coffee for a crisper acidity and more sweetness. Most of the actually brewing technique is similar to our regular Aeropress method– so it doesn’t hurt to review that before giving our iced Aeropress recipe a go. As usual, we think this recipe works best with bright and fruity coffees, especially coffee from Ethiopia, Kenya, or a high elevation Colombia, like Huila or Cauca.