Making coffee with a French press: step by step

A cafetière is the simplest way to make a full cup at home: ground coffee, hot water, wait and press. Yet the result often disappoints — too weak, too sharp, or with a layer of sediment at the bottom. This is rarely due to the pot. Making coffee with a cafetière revolves around four things you control: the grind, the amount of coffee, the water temperature, and the time. Below they are listed, with the grams per pot size included.

What you need to make coffee with a cafetière

A cafetière (also called a French press) works differently than a filter machine. The water does not run through the coffee, but the coffee sits in the water the entire brewing time. Then you press a metal filter down so the grounds stay at the bottom. That metal filter lets more through than paper. That’s why the cup is fuller and slightly cloudier than filter coffee.

You need four things:

• Coarsely ground coffee. The granule looks like coarse sea salt. Finer coffee slips through the filter and brews too quickly. Exactly how coarse, and how to set that on your grinder, you can read in our article about grind size per brewing method.
• A kitchen scale. A scoop of coarse coffee weighs differently each time. Weighing takes ten seconds and makes your cup repeatable.
• Water just off the boil. Most brewing advice recommends 92 to 96 °C. Without a thermometer, you can achieve this by letting the kettle sit for about half a to a full minute after boiling.
• A timer. The one on your phone is enough.

How much coffee per cafetière size

For a cafetière, usually 60 to 70 grams of coffee per liter of water is used. That is slightly more than for filter coffee because the coarse grind releases less in the same time. Start at 60 grams per liter. Converted to the most sold sizes:

• Small pot, 0.35 liters: 21 grams of coffee — one large mug.
• Medium pot, 0.5 liters: 30 grams of coffee — two mugs.
• Large pot, 1 liter: 60 grams of coffee — four mugs.

If you brew less than a full pot, calculate with 6 grams per 100 milliliters of water. For one mug of 250 milliliters, that is 15 grams. Note one thing: the grounds absorb water, roughly twice their own weight. So from half a liter of water, you pour out about 440 milliliters of coffee. If you want two full mugs, brew a bit more.

The ratios for other brewing methods are in our article about how many grams of coffee per cup.

Step by step: how to make the coffee

1. Preheat the pot. Rinse it with hot water and pour that away. A cold glass pot immediately lowers the temperature of your brewing water.
2. Weigh the coffee and put it in the pot. Preferably grind just before brewing.
3. Start the timer and pour the water. Pour in one steady movement so all the coffee gets wet. Weigh the water if your pot is on the scale: 1 milliliter equals 1 gram.
4. After about half a minute, stir once. A crust of grounds forms on top. Stirring breaks that and lets all the coffee mix with the water.
5. Put the lid on, with the plunger up. This keeps the heat in the pot. Do not press yet.
6. After four minutes, slowly press the filter down. If you feel a lot of resistance, the grind is too fine. Don’t force it; pull the plunger up a bit and press down gently again.
7. Pour everything out immediately. Coffee left in the pot still sits on the grounds and continues brewing. If you don’t drink it all at once, pour the rest into a thermos or a second pot.

Leave the last bit of sediment in the pot. That contains the finest grounds.

Disappointed with the cup? Adjust one thing at a time

Most how-to’s stop at the recipe. But a recipe is a starting point: beans, grinders, and tastes differ. So change one thing at a time and taste again. If you change two things at once, you won’t know which made the difference.

• The coffee tastes weak or watery. First use more coffee: go from 60 to 65 or 70 grams per liter. If that’s not enough, grind a step finer.
• The coffee tastes sharp and bitter. Grind a step coarser, or let the water cool a bit longer before pouring. Also check if you really poured out the pot after four minutes.
• The coffee tastes sour and thin at the same time. Then too little has been extracted. Grind a bit finer or let it brew a minute longer.
• There is a lot of sediment in your cup. Grind coarser and press slower. A grinder with burrs produces a more uniform grind than a blade grinder, and thus less fine dust.
• The filter is almost impossible to press down. The grind is too fine. This often happens with pre-ground coffee, which is usually set for filter machines.

Write down what works. Three numbers are enough: grams of coffee, milliliters of water, and your grinder setting. With a new bag of beans, start again at that point.

Frequently asked questions

How long should coffee brew in a cafetière?

Coffee in a cafetière brews for about four minutes before you press the filter down. That time suits a coarse grind; finer grinds reach their flavor sooner. Then pour everything out, because coffee left in the pot continues brewing.

What grind do you use for a cafetière?

For a cafetière, use a coarse grind, with granules the size of coarse sea salt. Finer coffee passes through the metal filter and causes sediment in the cup. If you grind yourself, start at the coarsest settings on your grinder and work step by step finer.

How much coffee goes in a 1-liter cafetière?

A 1-liter cafetière takes about 60 grams of coarsely ground coffee. If you find that too light, you can go up to about 70 grams. For a half-liter pot, 30 grams is a good starting point.

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A cafetière requires whole beans that you grind coarsely yourself. Our Dark Roast is roasted in small batches, from beans from Brazil and Ethiopia. If you brew half a liter every day, you use 30 grams per day and a kilo lasts you over a month. Subscribe and save 10%: choose the subscription on the product page.