Also known as the press pot and the french press, the cafetiere represents simplicity in itself, and is my chosen method of brewing coffee.
The cafetiere was invented by Bodum, and despite its name is used very little in France. They prefer to use auto-drip machines. The main idea of the cafetiere is to let ground coffee brew in a pot and then to simply remove the ground coffee from the liquid.
Few people know how to use a cafetiere properly, this usually resulting in a under-extracted or over-extracted brew. Whenever I see a cafetiere in a persons I’ll probably have a chat with them about it and I’ll discuss how long they let the coffee brew in the pot for. Some people say ” I plunge straight away” and another lady (who realy annoys me very much and who I will not name), lets the coffee brew for 15 minuites. None of this is infact correct. The coffee is brewed for 2-3 minuites if it’s ground to espresso, or 4-5 minuites if it’s coarsly grounded. I would personally say that Coarsley ground coffee is better. It’s also a good idea to use single origin coffee with the cafetiere, if your new to all of this I’d recomend colombian, as it’s quite nice and round.
Let me begin at the start. Firstly it’s important to make sure the cafetiere is clean and dry. Yes I know it’s going to end up wet eventually but the damp will ruin the coffee grounds and that’s yucky! Now boil the kettle and wait a little for the water to cool down, the experts say that the water should be 96 degrees centigrade, but i wouldn’t spend too much time trying to hit that mark of perfection. A 10 second cool down period is all that’s nescessary.
Whilst the water cools begin adding the coffee grounds. I’d say around 1 level tablespoon per cup, a cup being half a mug. If you’re doing a breakfast coffee use 1 heaped table spoon per mug. When the coffee is added, pour on the correct ammount of water and stir. A beautiful golden lava should appear on the top, this is what’s known in the business as the crema. Now put the lid on with the whole of the plunger sticking out of the top. After 3-4 minuites (coursly ground coffee) or 2-3 minuites (espresso ground coffee) plunge down slowly.
It’s now important to get the coffee out of the pot ASAP as the bitter parts of the coffee are beginning to be extracted. Never leave coffee in the pot, they do it on TV shows and adverts all the time, but this is not the way to do it as good as it may look. All the coffee that isn’t needed at the time could be placed in a thermos.
Enjoy
