The French Press has been around forever, and it's stuck around for a reason. It's simple, it's forgiving, and it makes a bold, full bodied cup that a lot of paper filtered methods just can't touch. If you like your coffee with a little weight to it, this is your brewer.
It makes about two to three cups, so it hits that sweet spot of being enough for you plus maybe one lucky person you decide to share with.
What you need
- A French Press
- A scale set to grams
- 40 grams of coffee, ground coarse
- Water fresh off the boil
- A timer set for 4 minutes
The steps
- Place your French Press on the scale and add your coffee grounds directly into the pot.
- Zero out your scale. Start your timer counting down from four minutes and begin pouring water over the grounds. Pour until you reach 664 grams total.
- Once your timer goes off, give the brew a light stir. You'll notice foam sitting on top, go ahead and skim that off. Then place the press filter on top of the pot and press down slowly and steadily.
- Enjoy some really awesome coffee.
Notes from experience
Coarse grind is not optional here, it's the whole game. Too fine and you'll end up with sludge at the bottom of your cup and a plunger that fights you the whole way down. Coarse grounds let the mesh filter do its job without a struggle.
Also, resist the urge to press immediately when the timer goes off. Skimming the foam first genuinely makes a difference in how clean the final cup tastes. It's a ten second step that people skip constantly and then wonder why their French Press coffee tastes muddier than they'd like.
One more thing worth mentioning: French Press coffee keeps extracting even after you've pressed it, since the grounds are still sitting right there in the liquid. If you're not drinking it immediately, pour it into a separate carafe so it doesn't turn bitter while it waits for you.
