French Press/Cafetiére

French Press/Cafetiére

Found in most homes, work places and holiday lets, mastering the cafetière brew method will see you right in most situations.

You will need

  • Cafetière
  • Really Good Coffee
  • Scales
  • Clean filtered water. I use a Brita or Peak filter at home
  • Timer (your phone is fine)
  • Stirrer

Method

1) Start by putting your kettle on to boil. The ideal temperature is just below boiling, so leave it for a minute or so to cool slightly after it’s come to the boil.

2) Pour some of the hot water into your cafetière to pre warm it. Once it's warm, pour the water out.

3) Whilst it's warming, weigh and grind your coffee – the general rule of thumb is 60g of coffee to 1 litre of water, so if you have a 350ml cafetiere you need 21g of coffee (maths is useful, who knew?!)

4) Either order your coffee pre ground for cafetière, or if you're grinding it yourself, aim for a pretty coarse grind, something a little coarser than filter.

5) Pour your hot water (for this size cafetière we’re using 350ml) over the grounds and start a timer for 4 minutes. Place the plunger on top of the beaker and wait.

6) When 4 minutes is up, give the surface of the grounds a stir – just enough to sink the “crust” of grounds sat on top.

7) Put the plunger back on top, set another timer for 5 minutes and wait. This is important to let the sediment settle at the bottom of the beaker, and means the coffee has extracted properly.

8) Finally, pour the coffee while holding on to the lid (without plunging!). Serve and enjoy all the coffee immediately to stop it over extracting. Ta daa!