Everything About French Press

French Press is no doubt the easiest way to brew delicious coffee 🤩 it’s the perfect brewer for starters to begin home brewing!

All you need is ground coffee (freshly ground of course!), pour hot water, wait 4 minutes and voila. You’ll have a cup of coffee to enjoy, no skills required! 🤗

The French Press uses a metal filter to filter the ground coffee, there all the coffee oils go into the cup and you get a velvety cuppa with lovely aromatics. You can also brew a clean zero fines cup of coffee with the right brewing technique! 😋

The best part of all, you can easily brew up to 3-4 cups of coffee (1 litre) in one go with minimal preparation 😍 great for sharing with family & friends in the morning!

Coffee Beans Roast Level & Brew Ratio for French Press

French press is quite a versatile brewer, you can brew with any roast level & make cold brew super easily! 🤗

As darker roast coffees are more soluble than lighter roast coffees, different roast level requires different grind size & brew ratio for the best French Press coffee.

We highly recommend brewing with 4 minutes total brew time on French Press, start with how much you want to brew, eg. 250ml a cup, 3 cups is about 750ml 😉

Here are the brew ratio recommendations for different roast level of coffee beans,

Light roast - 6g per 100ml
Medium roast - 6.5g per 100ml
Medium dark roast - 7g per 100ml
Dark roast - 8g per 100ml

Let’s say you are brewing 2 cups of medium roast coffee, it will be a total of 500ml water (2 x 250ml) and brew with 32g (6.5g x 5) of coffee beans ⚖️

In terms of grind size, the darker the roast level, the coarser the grind size! If you are brewing light roast coffee, make sure you adjust the grind size to a finer setting to encourage extraction! 😲  

If the coffee tastes sour & watery, go finer on the next brew. If tastes bitter & astringent, go coarser on the next brew.

For cold brew, we recommend medium or darker roast coffee with 10g per 100ml to drink as black. If pair with milk, go for 20g per 100ml for a thick concentrate cold brew 💪🏼  

French Press brewing top tips☕️

French Press is definitely the easiest way to brew coffee. Here are a couple of brewing tips to take your French Press coffee to the next level, the cleanest tasting coffee 😎

1. Always brew with 4 minutes, regardless of any roast level of coffee. Instead, adjust grind size to find the optimum extraction! If the coffee tastes bitter, it’s over-extracted with fine grind hence go coarser on the next brew. If tastes sour, go finer 😉

2. Use a spoon to gently break the crust at 4 minutes and all ground sink to the bottom. This step stops the extraction and prevents further over-extraction 🤩 just like cupping!

3. Pour all the brew into a server. This is to mix up all the coffee and makes every cup with a consistent taste. It’s optional for single cup brew, but highly recommended for brewing 2-4 cups of big brew 😮

4. You don’t need to press the metal filter all the way to bottom! Just keep it on top and use it as a strainer, it’s way easier to clean the filter this way 😍

5. Give a minute or 2 to let all fines set to the bottom. This will drastically reduce the sediments pour into your cup. All hail gravity! 🙌🏻

6. Pour into your cup and enjoy!  

Make Cold Brew with French Press 

French Press is also a great brewer for cold brew! Same thing with just ground coffee and room temperature water, steep for 12 hours & voila! You’ll have a refreshing cold brew to enjoy over a hot afternoon 🤩

Here are a couple of brewing tips for the best tasting cold brew 😋

We highly recommend making cold brew with espresso roast coffee, as it’s much soluble compare to light roast coffee & easier to fully extract coffee with room temperature water!

To enjoy as black, we recommend single origin espresso roast coffee that has fruity floral characteristics.

Preferably with African natural coffees with a 1:10 ratio for a juicy refreshing cuppa 🍓🍇🥭 

To pair with milk, go for espresso blends that loads of chocolate notes and a heavier body to punch through the milk! 💪🏼

The ideal cold brew ratio to pair with milk is 1:8 or lower for a more concentrated cold brew. The more concentrate the cold brew, the more milk you can pair it with 😊 

We usually prep the cold brew at night and by morning just pour out the cold brew into small bottles. You can keep the cold brew for 3-5 days in the fridge 😍

To enjoy it, just pop a couple of ice and pour the cold brew in. If cold brew tasting bitter, a quick fix is to add a dash of milk to neutralise the bitterness. ☕️

Next level versatility with French Press 😍 not only just for coffee, you can also brew tea with French Press!

We like to brew the Malaysia Johor grown Liberica Coffee Blossom from My Liberica with French Press 🌼 with 2g per cup of 250ml, brew with 93c water on 5 mins steep time. You’ll get to enjoy a sweet soothing floral tea 😋 

Besides, cascara is also a great option to brew with French Press. You can check out the Sabah Cascara here.

That's all about French Press. Happy brewing!