Aeropress, and how to compete

The World AeroPress Championship is about building community, making friends, and celebrating coffee - WAC Ethos

So! We participated in the Singapore Aeropress Competition 2024, hosted by Common Man Coffee Roasters at East Coast Commune, and we are here to share our insights and tips for competing.

Bonus: Winning recipe at the end of the article

How does it work?

For Singapore, it's 36 participants via lottery draw.

Every participant will receive two bags of coffee, one for practice, and another to be given on the day of the competition again.

Competition is always about knowing the game, and in this competition, the more you know about the coffee, the more you will have a higher chance of winning. For example, CMCR released the roast date of both the practice coffee and the coffee for the actual day of the competition, so you should ideally start brewing your practice coffee as close to the day

Since the Aeropress competition is fast-paced compared to the other coffee competitions, you have to balance between the necessary compromises and determine which are the important factors that work best for your routine.

'Since there is no formal scoresheet, Judges simply determine their preferred choice of coffee. However, a calibration session is conducted before the competition to set the benchmarks and characteristics of the coffee.

Compared to the brewer's competition, there are usually certain attributes we look out for such as aroma, flavour, acidity etc, but Aeropress is more of a preference.'

- Mervin Lim, Head Judge of Singapore Aeropress Championship 2024

World Coffee Championship certified Brewer's Cup Judge & Co-founder of Fluid Collective

We also have the opportunity to compete along with Alois Ng,

'Just think of it from a long black perspective; you extract all the good parts and after that bypass to the desired strength.'

Alois Ng, the Singapore Aeropress Champ '23, competed on the world stage last year. An experienced brewer who also recently won first place in the Singapore Origami throwdown.

Nicholas, our Singapore Aeropress '24 Champion, when asked any strategy when approaching the Aeropress competition?

'I really didn't think too much, Press 3x and win.'

In a simple sentence, the coffee should impress the judges (in a good way), and most importantly, have fun!

Last but not least, here's the Singapore Aeropress Champ '24's winning recipe by Nicholas Huang,

RATIO:

18g coffee, 145g of 89°C of 88ppm Aquacode brewing water

Grind setting:

Commandante C40 18 clicks

Choice of Paper:

1 Standard Aeropress micro-filter

1 AESIR paper

BREW: Inverted Method

145g of 89°C water, stir 12 times to wet the grounds evenly

Flip over at 00:40, press at 00:50

Bypass an additional 45g to the brew, stir and serve!

COFFEE: MYSTERY COFFEE, roasted by CMCR, sourced by Falcon Coffee Asia.

We have a limited serving of the Mystery Coffee available at our brew bar,

let us know if you like to give it a try!