Fresh Hand Roasted Coffee
Certified Organic Coffee
Helping the World
French Press

How to Prepare the Perfect French Press

Using a French Press (Press Pot) is the easiest and best way to get truly excellent coffee at home. The keys to getting good results are: using high quality, fresh beans; grinding the coffee correctly; using clean equipment and filtered water; timing the process.

You’ll need a French Press (Press Pot), coffee, a grinder, a spoon, a timer and cups.

Step 1

Grind the Coffee

It is important the coffee be ground coarse and it be ground with a quality burr (rather than a blade) grinder. By grinding the coffee coarse, you’re allowing for a slower and more even extraction, which results in a fuller bodied and more nuanced cup. Blade grinders chop the coffee rather than grinding it, resulting in uneven and unpredictable particle size. This leads to an uneven extraction creating increased bitterness. In addition, the lack of consistency in particle size results in inconsistent and unpredictable results from pot to pot.

Step 2

Add Coffee to the Pot

You will need one tablespoon of coffee for every 4 oz of water. In other words, if you have a 16 oz press pot, you’ll want to use 4 tablespoons of coffee. Feel free to adjust this amount based on your own personal tastes and please make sure the pot is clean and dry.

Step 3

Add Water

You should bring the water just to a boil (electric kettles are great at this) and let it cool for about 45 seconds. Pour it aggressively into the pot so that it saturates the grounds. The key is to saturate all the grounds evenly. You should move the stream around as you pour to facilitate this. Do not fill the pot entirely. With many fresh coffees you will see significant expansion of the coffee in a sort of “foam” at the top of the liquid once you add water. This is known as “bloom” and is the result of the off-gassing of co2 from the coffee. Adding too much water can result in a very messy counter top.

Step 4

Start the Timer

You’re going to want to have a timer that counts down from 4 minutes and has an alarm at 4 minutes. It’s very important that you use a timer to guarantee high quality coffee.

Step 5

Grind the Coffee

Make sure you line up the spout and the corresponding opening in the lid.

Step 6

Put Top on the Press

At exactly 4 minutes, you should push the press (slowly) into the pot to force all grounds to the bottom. You might have to press and then release and repeat to do this. Do not crush it with all your might – use some finesse.

Step 7

Pour the Coffee

You need to do this as soon as you’ve pressed the pot. If you are making more coffee than you can fit into a cup and want to hold some for later, pour the coffee into a thermal carafe. Do not simply leave the coffee in the press pot — it will get nasty quickly. If you want to avoid any stray grounds and sediment, you can pour the coffee through a mesh basket filter.