The greatest one cup coffee maker ever?  Maybe so (said Bloomberg Businessweek).

Know what it’s made of?  Plastic.

Know how much it costs?  30 bucks.

That would be the AeroPress coffee maker.  It might look a little goofy.  Bon Appetit said it “works like an over-size syringe”.  But then they also said, “it makes fantastic coffee”, so maybe a little goofy isn’t so bad.

“…makes the flavors sing like no other coffee maker I’ve used.” (Newsweek)

But besides your coffee beans, you need something else to make the world’s greatest single cup of coffee – you need petrochemicals.  That’s because the polypropylene an AeroPress is made from – is made from propylene (they add “poly” in the lab by linking together all those little propylenes), a petrochemical.

“…I always travel with an AeroPress…it makes fantastic coffee.”  (Bon Appetit)

And what’s so good about polypropylene?

It’s durable – it stands up to being used (with hot water) day in and day out.

It’s non-reactive – so your coffee tastes like, coffee.  Nothing else (and nothing else in it, but what you add).

It’s recyclable – though odds are, you might not want to give it up.

“This is now, bar none, by favorite brewing method.”  (Timothy Ferriss, 4-Hour Chef)

It looks, by the way, like this (sitting on top of a glass):

In fact, the AeroPress folks spent a lot of time choosing the right materials for their coffee maker, and what they’ve settled on is polypropylene.  Oh, with one exception.  The plunger piece has a rubber-like seal on it, that’s made from a different petrochemical-made plastic.

And the plastic construction not only makes a great cup of coffee, and makes a lightweight coffee maker you can take with you just about anywhere – but did we mention it also makes it affordable.  Like 30 bucks.  Ok, we did mention that.  But it was worth repeating.

“We tested seven models and the $30 AeroPress beat out the $5,500 Jura Giga 5…you get a rich, bold, assertive, pure cup of coffee that’s also complex and clean.”   (New York Daily News)

Now, while we are coffee drinkers, we’re not in the business of telling you what coffee maker you should buy.  We did want to tell you though, about another one of the many ways, petrochemicals make everyday life better, even getting up in the morning.

And if you want to see what makes AeroPress all that, you can see it here.