While I agree the possibilities are terrifying I have a rather hard time imagining this type of interface becoming ubiquitous. I just don't think most people have enough mental self control to avoid accidental input. For example how many times have most of us, in a moment of anger, thought about saying or texting someone something that we'd never actually send? How would such a device determine between what you actually want to input and what's just passing thoughts?
I also have hard time seeing the "normals" feel comfortable with this kind of tech for everyday use.
I haven't made Aeropress myself yet but had a great cup at Heart in Portland and really enjoyed it. I like the hybrid approach between full immersion and filtered brewing. You get the fuller flavor of a french press without the residue that ruins your last sips.
Let me preface my response by saying I am a fairly snobby coffee drinker. I only really get beans or espresso drinks from coffee shops such as Intelligentsia, Ritual Roasters, Heart, Stumptown etc.. I've found that the likes of starbucks and most coffee you find at an average grocery store is roasted poorly, burnt, or roasted so dark you loose all flavor. That being said here's my recommendations for a great cup.
1. Use fresh beans. Whatever beans I buy I notice the quality of taste really starts to diminish about two or three weeks after roast. I'll sometimes still use beans up to a month old but nothing after that.
2. Grind Immediately before brewing. The moment you grind your coffee will start to lose flavor and oils.
3. Get a scale and use the right proportions of water to beans. Using a scale has been the single biggest factor in getting a consistently great cup whatever brew method I use.
I generally use a 6 cup chemex to brew, a bur grinder to grind immediately before brewing, a Bonita gooseneck kettle to pour the water, and a escali scale to measure both beans and water.
STEPS
1. Measure 48 Grams of unground beans
2. Boil 000 Grams of water(1 Liter) in an electric kettle.
3. Grind beans
4. Use boiled water to wet the chemex filter
5. Pour out water from the chemex being careful not to loose the wet filter
6. Grind beans and put them in the filter
7. Tare your scale to zero
8. Pour 100 grams of water in a circular motion starting at the center of your grinds.
9. Wait 90 seconds for the grounds to "bloom"
10. Pour more water till you reach 710 grams total.
11. Wait for all water to pass through the filter and enjoy.
Ideally I'd like to control the temperature precisely but the electric kettle I have gets it very close. You'll notice I don't measure brew time, the way I've learned is the vary the grind in order to achieve the right extraction. If it comes out weak use a finer grind, if it comes out bitter use a more corse grind. If you want to use brew time as a reference however that amount should take 5 minutes total including the bloom and creates about 3 8oz glasses.
If you want to vary and make a smaller amount the ratio I use here is 14.79 Grams of water per Gram of unground coffee. This is the same ratio that Intelligentsia recommends for their chemex.
I agree, this has happens to me regularly. Someone reaches out on email asking for advice, I take the time to write a significant response, and get none in return. I've also found it discouraging as this kind of response is the most common I get. It's rare for me to see so much as a "thanks for the reply!" and rarer still to see an in kind response. I'm not very motivated to reply when I've been trained that they usually won't return the courtesy.
Yeah the concept of their quarterly and anual reports reminds me very much of what Nicholas Felton was trying to do with Datum. Where Datum broke down for me was that I had to stay consistent with manually updating it.
Thanks! It was really a pain point for us as founders, most of my life I haven't lived in a big city but been a die hard music fan willing to drive to shows hours away. It was always tedious having to go through and check each nearby city that got decent shows.
I also have hard time seeing the "normals" feel comfortable with this kind of tech for everyday use.