How to create the perfect coffee - an interview with the inventor Alan Adler

Last year, I broke my coffee. I was about to buy a new one when stumbled upon a review AeroPress. Plastic device, similar to a hand pump, preparing one cup of coffee, it costs only $ 30 and, judging by the reviews the most diehard snobs, brews coffee is better than a thousand machine. I ordered it and my world turned upside down. Coffee turns out excellent - soft and rich, and yet the press and cleans itself.

The name comes from the AeroPress other product, released by the same company - Aerobie (The size of a ring plate for frisbee that flies further than analogs). I know all about Aerobie thanks to one of the most ardent fans of this toy - known programmer from MIT Bill Gosper, Who scored the trunk flying discs. Even the license plate he read as Aerobie. Science fiction, but the genius of aerodynamics, also Aerobie invented, made a real storm in the coffee world.

Recently, I got to the small office behind the modest industrial complex in Palo Alto in Silicon Valley, where the Aerobie company and its modest Maitre

Alan Adler. In his 75 he is still in service, classic independent inventor. The workplace is surrounded by boxes with card index, which recorded the whole history of the inventions, it has a separate storage for older versions of the flying disk, and prototypes are placed on the wall in chronological order, illustrating the evolution of the invention. Opposite is a table of his granddaughter, which deals with public relations. If someone needs a standard of the inventor, it is in front of you.

Alan Adler agreed to talk with me about the coffee, flying saucers and inventions.

- Where did you get the idea AeroPress?

- Once I was talking with my wife our sales manager. It was frustrating that the drip coffee machine can not make a good one Cup of coffee - the result may vary from case to case. I accepted the challenge and began to experiment with a simple machine that could be put on the right on the cup.

- And what do you know about coffee before?

- What if the coffee to brew, not boiling, it will be sweeter. So it was written in the instructions for the coffee machine that I bought 12 years earlier.

- Little. And why did you start?

- tasting coffee. Came to the conclusion that the most delicious coffee It obtained at 80 ° C, well below the boiling point. But the water for a long time passed through the filter - 4-5 minutes. Once the temperature makes the coffee sweeter then the time can affect the taste. I used different tools to press the coffee ground in the filter cone, but it did not work I: pressure accelerates the process. Then I invented AeroPress. Coffee turned out great. He was not nearly as bitter as usual.

- How many times have you made any changes to the design before you came?

- Forty. The first sample looked like a bicycle pump. But once I was able to assess how well it works. But I did not know how to use his own invention, assuming that it would be easy enough to press the lever and get a cup of coffee for a few seconds. I had yet to understand that even in an espresso cup filled with machines for 25 seconds.

- Coffee does not even have time to soak up the water?

- A little time to. First I poured coffee in a cup of water, then poured into the press, and then learned to do everything in the press.

- And when did this happen?

- At the beginning of 1994. I ordered the production patterns when completed work on the design, but it did four or five prototypes with their hands. I would like to be tested unfamiliar to me people. The wife of our manager - principal of the school. We gave four examples of teachers and asked to make coffee at home during the week. Everyone really enjoyed it. There was only one comment: the device rolled down from the table. Then I changed to a hexagonal body shape and to order samples.

- It was a big investment for a small company?

- Hundreds of thousands of dollars. And we did not have specialists in the coffee market sales, we've specialized in toys and sporting goods.

- For coffee, we'll come back, but for now tell us how you became an inventor. Started something tinkering in my childhood?

- I was born in 1938 in Detroit, but moved to six years and Los Angeles. When I was a kid, doing things out of any debris that could find. Nails tied to the rails, and when the train wheels turned them into thin strips, and collecting a little sawed. Then attached a handle to make toy swords. I exchanged them for other toys.

- You have been influenced by the parents?

- My father did not know how to work with your hands, no one did not hang the shelves. When I was eight years old, my mother went to the courses for housewives, where they were taught to do minor repairs. She learned how to replace the switches and faucets, and teach it to me. 10-15 cents I was doing this work for the neighbors.

- continued to study science and technology in school?

- I worked for radio mechanic in high school and became easy to take on engineering challenges, I am self-taught.

- You did not go to college?

- No, I taught. For many years I worked as a lecturer at Stanford. Led occupation of sensitive elements and engineering, are still read lectures there.

I had the ability to become a student, but not enough discipline. I remember one case of plane geometry in the classroom: I offered a very unusual evidence, and the teacher told him to write on the board for the rest of the class. I wrote. The teacher was stunned. Then I realized what he was thinking, if proof must write my father, and he could not do it by definition. My final grades were average, I wanted to start earning as soon as possible, to live independently.

- And how do you combined the engineering work and self-education?

- I I read greedily. When he worked as a design engineer, weeks read until one o'clock.

- When you started working on your own projects?

- Too early. The first patent was in the early 60s. It was a portable lamp, which received enough power from a weak battery to turn on the fluorescent lamp. Lamp never went on sale. I offered her producers, but without any interest on their part. Another company eventually produced analog, but I have a license no one bought.

- How did you get engaged in the production of toys?

- Invented toy, which he called Slapsie, of interconnected plates. The principle is the same as in toys-springs. Then he sold the license to a major manufacturer Wham-O.

- As you cranked this deal?

- Make a model of the tree and offered it for a year and a half dozen companies in the Wham-O treated twice. By the end of the year I received only refusals. I had to order the production of molded plastic samples on which Wham-O agreed to view (previously only took my mail). In the office I went to him with a suitcase full of toys, and they loved it! In that year, they received 10,000 proposals, but took only mine. Toy launched into production, but sold it is not very good. Now I own the rights to sell.

- Why did you decide to improve frisbee?

- When I was playing Frisbee, all the while thinking that the disc is very thick, more than 2.5 centimeters. To fly, it has to be pushed through a huge amount of air. I began to develop a thin disk. And he made a lot of options, but none of them did not fly quite right. Then I began to experiment with rings, invented Skyro - ring, whose flight was two times longer than that of a frisbee. I sold a million copies, helped to establish a couple of world records. But theoretically ring was stably at high speed and at low flight deviated from the straight line. Therefore, my goal was to drive invention, even flying at all speeds. I added to the Skyro small ledge around the perimeter, an analogue of the airfoil. The effect was simply magical!

- Aerobie has already sold more than a frisbee?

- I do not think, but sales exceeded 10 million.

- Let's go back to the coffee. one expert He saidThat makes AeroPress espresso better than most of the coffee machines, standing 20-30 times more expensive. How do you define value?

- When it comes to small devices, most companies take the cost of production, multiplied by about two to compensate for the sales and administration costs and profit. And then the seller again doubles the price.

- But even filters AeroPress very cheap.

- As a rule, the filters 350 are 3 dollars 50 cents. And they can be reused.

- And you do that?

- For many years it was doing before my wife said, 'Alan, why do you do this, you have filters as much as you wish! "

- How one filter can be used again?

- I would use one filter per week, up to about 15 cups of coffee. One Marine, constantly living on an aircraft carrier, has written that uses a filter for months. But my experiments have shown that after the 30th application filters collapse.

- I like that coffee AeroPress cleared itself. And it was intended to develop?

- It was just luck. Accidental discovery.

- How do you promote it in the market?

- We AeroPress do not advertise, but we try to meet her people writing about coffee.

- How many copies you have sold?

- Millions will not say exactly. I could be found, but most of all, we have this information we will not disclose.

- I've heard some coffee drinkers used AeroPress «upside down», as long as the coffee brewed. Approve such a method?

- Just because of the fact that the AeroPress coffee cooked quickly, it has a delicate flavor. Inverted method makes the bitter drink.

- But AeroPress can be used in different ways?

- Yes, now even the competition is held for the preparation of coffee AeroPress. I have such ideas and it never came.

- And what are recipes for AeroPress were the unexpected?

- One guy is poured into AeroPress not water, and immediately ready coffee - a very novel idea. Several times won the competition coffee made by inverted. But lately win those who brews the coffee as usual. Last year's winner did everything as close as possible to the user.

- Now everything is go crazy for Blue bottle coffee - they made a show of brewing of detailed procedures. Their coffee benefit if they move to AeroPress?

- Yes, because the less time is spent in the tea leaves, the less bitter drink.

- Why are these guys so took off?

- Due to the quality of the grain. They make good coffee.

- What mistake people often make using AeroPress?

- Too much press on the press. It is necessary to press gently so as not to create too much pressure and not to increase the brewing coffee. That is not to add bitterness to the drink.

- How often do you drink coffee?

- Double coffee in the morning once a week can drink a cup more, but is usually limited to coffee.

- What are going to be working on?

- He thought recently about simulators. I would like to make the equipment that will be so nice to use that people will enjoy it.

- And do you like exercise?

- Who do rowing simulators. I am interested in devices that can collect and hide cumbersome alternative designs. For several years I occasionally come back to this problem, I have already done a lot of calculations, conducted several experiments, but have not yet started the development of design.