For a standard 500 ml press: 33 grams of coffee, ground coarse, water just off the boil, four minutes of patience, then a slow plunge. A ratio of 1:15. The French press is the most forgiving brewer in the house, which is exactly why it deserves better coffee than it usually gets.
The method
Warm the press with hot water and tip it out. Add the coffee, then all the water at once, aiming for 95 °C or a kettle rested half a minute off the boil. Start the timer.
At four minutes, stir the crust once, gently. Skim the foam if you like a cleaner cup. Plunge slowly, stopping just above the bed rather than crushing it, and decant everything straight away. Coffee left standing on the grounds keeps extracting, and the last cup pays for it.
How much coffee
| Press size | Coffee | Water |
|---|---|---|
| 350 ml | 23 g | 350 g |
| 500 ml | 33 g | 500 g |
| 1 litre | 66 g | 1,000 g |
If the cup is wrong
Silty or muddy: grind coarser, plunge slower, decant sooner. Flat or hollow: your coffee is probably stale rather than your technique poor. The freshness window matters more in a press than anywhere else, because nothing filters the truth out.
Our coffees in a press
Weight suits the press. Our Liberica, Sarawak Long Banga Honey, carries its body all the way through the metal filter, and the press's texture flatters it. Ethiopia Kayon makes a rounder, fruit-heavy morning cup here than it does in paper.
The frame behind the numbers is in the ratio piece.
