S2: Episode 10: You Say French Press, I Say Cafetière
Join me as we plunge into the popular cafetière coffee brewer. We take a look at its history, its pros and cons as a coffee brewer and learn some key tips for getting the best brew with it. This week’s FACQ is about a very common problem that just about everyone has experienced at some point when using a cafetière.
Whether you call it cafetière, French Press or plunger if you have long consigned this bit of coffee kit to the back of your kitchen cupboard this episode may well persuade you to dig it out.
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Hello and welcome to The Coffee Drinker’s Guide, a podcast for the coffee curious where I explore and explain the world of specialty coffee to make your daily coffee better and more satisfying.
I’m Angela Holder a coffee roaster and writer on a mission to fight back against bad coffee by giving you the knowledge you need to help you get good coffee and a happier (coffee) life in coffee-break sized episodes. So grab your coffee, pull up a chair and take a break.
This week's episode explores the popular cafetière coffee brewer, which is also known as a plunger or French Press…and later I’ll be answering a question about a very common problem that just about everyone has experienced at some point when using a cafetière so stay tuned for that…
I’ve said it before (in episode 2 of season 2 on coffee brewing kit to be precise) but I do believe that the one piece of coffee brewing kit to be found in most households - in the UK at least - is the cafetière. I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe it’s the apparent simplicity of the method or how stylish it looks. Or perhaps we can blame the influence of Michael Caine who used one in the opening scene of the movie The Ipcress File, but open a kitchen cupboard in just about any British home and you are likely to find one lurking within. What I do know is that its name frequently drops out of people’s heads when they go to buy coffee for it. When doing my stint selling coffee beans at the roastery I often had to interpret people’s hand gestures as they visually described the type of coffee equipment they wanted to buy coffee for and the gesture for a cafetière describing its ‘downward plunging’ action was particularly amusing. So now that you know the pidgin sign language for it, lets take a look at everyone’s favourite brewer, the cafetière…
So firstly the cafetière and the brewer
Despite its French name, the cafetière's history is actually pan European. An early version was patented in France by Mayer and Delforge around the middle of the 1800’s. But the design was subsequently tweaked, notably by Italians Calimani and Moneta in the late 1920’s and then by a Swiss fellow, Faliero Bondanini, in the late 1950’s. It was Bondanini who created the design which was later bought by Danish company Bodum. And arguably, it was Bodum who took the cafetière global - to the point where if you drink coffee, it is likely to be a Bodum cafetière that is lurking in your kitchen cupboard whether you use it or not. While brewing coffee with a cafetière has some issues which I will get into later, it is an efficient way to brew fresh coffee for a small group of people. Also due to its longer brewing time, cafetières are good to use with coffee that is staling and needs a longer brewing time to extract well. The main downside of the cafetière - as I’m sure all its users will attest - is cleaning it as the damp grounds are messy and difficult to remove. I would be willing to bet this is the main reason cafetières are often consigned to the back of that cupboard. Sloshing the grinds down the sink can result in your sink and drains becoming blocked, which is not ideal. If anyone has come up with a better way to remove them than by straining off the leftover coffee then scooping out the grinds with a long handled spoon, I’d love to hear it!
Next the cafetière and the brew
As a coffee brewing system the cafetière brewer is beautifully simple to use and terribly easy to get wrong. It is essentially a jug with an integral metal filter, which is pushed down to separate the coffee grounds from the liquid so that it’s ready to drink. What is there to go wrong? Ha! Plenty. The key variables for brewing a good cup of cafetière coffee are: grind size, the ratio of coffee grounds to water, water temperature and brewing time. If any one of these is off the mark the coffee won't taste great - but the good news is that paying a little attention to each of these things will go a long way towards getting a good brew. As a general rule, use medium ground coffee (which are grinds around the size of white granulated sugar), water at 90°Celsius or 194°Fahrenheit and steep the coffee for 4 minutes before plunging. I like to use the brew ratio of 1:12, or in other words, around 21 grammes of coffee per 250 millilitres of water. Fine tune your method to suit your taste buds by tweaking one of these at a time while keeping the rest the same, until you achieve your personal nirvana in a cup. A sign of a good brew is seeing a thick unbroken layer of foam on top of the coffee in the jug after you press the plunger down. Finally, it’s worth investing in an insulated, double walled model to prevent the water cooling while it brews. Or you could wrap a tea towel around the jug. Low tech but it works.
Finally the cafetière and the taste
Typically a well brewed cafetière coffee will have a medium to heavy mouthfeel and should taste smooth, rich and pleasing. The coffee will not have the clean and sharply defined flavours of a filter brew. Instead the flavours will be slightly muddy and muted due to the suspended coffee solids, or finer grounds, which get pushed through the filter and stay in the water. These contribute to the mouthfeel but give the coffee a bitter edge as they continue to steep in the water while you drink it. But here we enter the realm of personal taste. I am bitter sensitive which is why this is not my brewing method of choice. But you may not be and find that the cafetière is your way to the perfect brew for you. Be warned though, this method can be prone to both under-extraction resulting in a weak, wishy washy flavour and over-extraction resulting in a bitter, stewed flavour. Both instances are entirely down to operator error. Don’t blame the coffee.
And now its time for a Frequently Asked Coffee Question…
And this episode’s question - with a mercifully short answer is…
It is really hard to push the plunger down on my cafetière at the end of the brewing time. Why is this?
There are two potential causes of this problem, but the solutions are simple. Either the coffee grind is too fine or too much coffee for the amount of water has been used. Try using a slightly coarser grind or less coffee the next time you brew. Sorted.
Thank you for listening to this episode of The Coffee Drinker’s Guide and that was all about the cafetière brewer. Have you been inspired to dig out your cafetière and give it another go? Let me know by using the ‘send me a text message’ link in the show notes. Unfortunately, I am unable to reply to text messages but you can also get in touch via Instagram @thecoffeedrinkersguide or email me at thecoffeedrinkersguide@gmail.com if you have a question about coffee. In the next episode we get a little technical as we talk about the phenomenon of the coffee bloom. If you are wondering what the heck this is be sure to hit follow so that you catch the episode when it drops. Also tell your coffee friends about the show and rate and review this podcast wherever you listen to your podcasts to help other coffee curious people find the show too. Thanks to my executive producer Viel Richardson at Lusona Publishing and Media Limited. You can find him at lusonapub.co.uk. Until next time I’m Angela Holder thanks for sharing your coffee break with me - the best way to tackle life is one coffee at a time and here’s to better coffee!
The Coffee Drinker’s Guide is a Blue Sky Coffee Project