Cafetière brew guide

Modern Standard's guide to brewing the perfect Cafetière coffee

You will need

  • Cafetiere

  • Hot water

  • Scales

  • Bag of delicious coffee

  • Timer

Step 1

Fill the kettle with enough water for your cafetière, plus a little extra to pre heat the cafetiere, and boil the kettle.

Step 2

While the water is heating, grind your coffee. French press coffee calls for a coarse, even grind. We recommend starting with a 1:12 coffee-to-water ratio. If you’re using 350g of water, you’ll want 30g of coffee.

Step 3

To start, gently pour twice the amount of water than you have coffee onto your grounds. For example, if you have 35g of coffee, you’ll want to start with 70g of water.

Step 4

Give the grounds a gentle stir. Allow the coffee to bloom for 30 seconds.

Add the rest of your water and position the lid gently on top of the grounds. Don’t plunge just yet. Let the coffee steep for four minutes.

Step 5

Gently remove your French press from the scale and place it on your counter.

Press the filter down. If it’s hard to press, that means your grind is too fine; if the plunger “thunks” immediately down to the floor, it means your grind is too coarse. The sweet spot, pressure-wise, is 15–20 pounds. Not sure what this feels like? Try it out on your bathroom scale.

When you’ve finished pressing, serve the coffee immediately. Don’t let it sit, as this will cause it to continue brewing and over-extract.

Step 6

Enjoy.

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