The new stainless steel Aeropress + abysmal/nonexistent customer service

I've been an Aeropress fan since the brewer was first invented. In fact my ringing endorsement of it appeared prominently on the box when it first came out (I worked as a roaster and buyer for Starbucks and Allegro Coffee for 28 years and got to know inventor Alan Adler early on).

Fast forward to today and I (foolishly as it turned out) jumped when I read about the introduction of the new double-wall stainless steel Aeropress. I knew that Alan had sold the company but didn't know anything about the changes wrought by new owner Tiny aka Tiny Capital except for seeing a bunch of new, higher-end products coming out.

So it turns out that the new ownership has no idea of how you're supposed to brew with an Aeropress. Alan Adler's original instructions (see attached) couldn't be clearer and the key thing is that you're supposed to brew an espresso-strength concentrate and then dilute it to taste to make drip-strength coffee if you so desire. That is what the numbered markings on the brewer are for: each one corresponds to one Aeropress scoop of coffee (~13-17 grams depending on roast degree and coffee density). What Aeropress recommends instead on current website - and what I see people doing in YouTube videos - is to ignore the shot markings, put a scoop or two of beans (or an equivalent amount carefully weighed with equally carefully weighed water) into the brewer and then fill it with water to equal the final amount of drip-strength coffee you want. That is quite literally a recipe for over-extraction and a misuse of the brewer.

What makes this a more serious problem is that the volume of the Aeropress chambers is not even remotely consistent between the numerous models they have introduced. The new and super-expensive stainless model is a case in point in that it is marked for 5 shots but can't produce anywhere near that much coffee.

Anyway having spent $300+ on the new brewer, its stand, a gold filter and some paper filters I got the thing only to find that it can't make anything close to 5 shots from the 60 grams of coffee I use. Then the nightmare began:

1. Their return policy (and yeah, it's on me to not have read it before ordering but this was a company I thought I knew whose products I'd been using for over 15 years) doesn't permit the return of a coffee maker that has been used - even once!

2. When you try contacting customer service, you get a Chatbot! Said bot was not able to resolve my issues but promised I'd hear from a real person. No dice. So there is NO customer service - just a web site cluttered with marketing come-ons and pop-ups. Given the price of their new products this is like paying up for an Apple iPhone and getting service and support from the postal service or cable company.

My advice: if you must buy an Aeropress buy it from Amazon or any other reseller who has a normal return policy and avoid dealing direct with the company like the plague. What a shame that a brewer that was all about simplicity, versatility and value is now in the hands of money-grubbing VC folks who graduated from the Leona Helmsley school of customer service.