1 min
3-5 Min
2-8 pers
Coffee
Italy
While French Press Coffee is a larger vessel, and it’s great for everyday use. We love our pour-over coffee, but on a daily basis for our household French press is the way to go. The vessel looks intimidating, but it’s very simple when you break it down, which we’ve done here—we’ve created a guide to the easiest French Press Coffee at home.
If you’ve read the Easiest Pour Over Coffee, you’ll know that we started as tourists in the coffee world— working in fashion and lifestyle creative for brands we used to be on the road 250+ days a year, and quickly made a habit of trying the local coffee offerings.
But, our first exposure to French Press was actually the eye-opener to great coffee. In college I was in Dallas, Texas at a Italian bakery waiting on a friend. The waiter brought a small single person press and a cup and walked away, and I was throughly confused on what I was looking at. I tried to pour the coffee without plunging and the waiter saw, took pity and showed me how it worked. And wow—it was delicious, I went out that day and bought a French press, and never again used an electric coffee maker.
These guides are not meant to be the fully science geek version on how to make technically perfect coffee, with the water exactly 207 degrees, etc. They are meant to help you make great coffee while you are sleepy and just waking up—when most people drink it, and make the experience of your first cup a meditative way to start the day, not a chore.
This is by far the easiest and quickest French Press Coffee guide. Once you feel confident, feel free to explore our more detailed guides that get to the geeky parts, but if you are just looking for a simple, great brew— you are in the right place.
Ingredients for French Press Coffee
- Kitchen scale
- Kettle (gooseneck preferably)
- Water (that you’d drink straight)
- *21g Coffee to 10z water (weight in suggested base g.)
- French press
Directions
Step 1
Prepare and Measure:
Gather your French press, our freshly roasted coffee beans, and a grinder. Measure the desired amount of coffee beans and grind them to a coarse consistency., we suggest 21 grams to 10 ounces of water (per person). Meanwhile boil water, let it come to boil then wait about ½ a minute— you don’t want to scald anything.
Step 2
Bloom the Grounds:
Add your ground coffee to the French Press and create what’s called a ‘bloom’ by pouring a small amount of hot water over the grounds, saturating but not swimming. This process releases the gases—its a very important step to getting the best flavor. Allow it to bloom for ½ a minute to 45 seconds. (We use this moment to set an intention for the day, and imagine being at the end of our day and it’s all been a success— it gives a confidence boost and focus that makes the day start out great.)
Step 3
Steep and plunge:
Once Bloomed, pour the rest of the hot water in to your desired amount. Stir and don’t place the lid on the French press, just allow the coffee to steep for about 4 minutes. This will extract the bold flavors. After the steeping time, place the lid and slowly press down the plunger, separating the coffee grounds from the brewed coffee.
Conclusion
Et voila. An easy way to make French Press coffee that’s not a chore.
If you want to learn more, or explore some of the science that’s been perfected over the years, check out our more detailed guides. Here are a few ingredients tips that make a huge difference:
The grounds: At Tete, we micro-roast, or small batch roast, your beans only when you order them. It’s the biggest factor in coffee flavor, and you’ll not find coffee this fresh anywhere else.
Second largest difference in coffee taste are the ratios. You’ll want to follow each coffee’s ratios or establish a baseline of about 11:1, then find your personal favorite. Mainly it’s that each coffee has a different weight and density, and the longer your coffee has been exposed to air after roasting and grinding it dries out— it will not be the same grounds you measured yesterday, it’s always, always, changing.
Keep in mind that more grounds isn’t always better—depending on the bean and roast, more or less grounds dramatically changes the flavor profiles. A cup that was sweet at 20 grams might be quite bitter at 25 grams. But a cup you’ll add milk to might need the extra punch to break through the milk and bring you the right flavors. It’s all an experiment. Read more here.
The water you use is actually the most important. At a bare minimum, you must use water you’d drink straight, but what you really want is delicious water— the right balance of alkaloids and minerals drastically changes the brew. In NYC we are blessed with great water— ask anyone and they’ll say it’s the water that makes our pizza and bagels so divine…. But we get that’s not the case everywhere, some municipalities heavily chlorinate the water, etc. In So Cal, we just use a Filter 5 gallon jug, and allow it to sit for 24 hours to evaporate any residual chlorine. So if you filter your water, use that. If you drink bottled water? Use that. It sounds insane until you realize that the majority of your coffee is the water, right—but it’s true. We will say that the issue with the bottled water is that it’s missing minerals that helps bring coffee flavors forward through a complex chemical process. Super coffee geeks buy replacement minerals. They are pretty cheap and you can find on Amazon.
