mmmm french press
For lack of finding any clothes I wanted, I spent one of my Kohl's gift cards on this French press coffee maker. (The one I got actually has a brand name of "French Cafe," but it's the exact same model and manufacturer as the BonJour one you see there. Now I kinda wish I had read those reviews before buying it, but I guess that's what I get for shopping in a {scoff} brick & mortar store instead of online. We'll see how long it really lasts.)
For those not familiar with the French press method, it works like this: you pour the coffee grounds, preferably a coarse grind, into the jug with boiling water. Put the lid on, and let it brew for about four minutes. Then you push the plunger down, which has a metal mesh screen that pushes all the grounds to the bottom of the jug, then serve.
What you get is a much richer coffee, like what you'd get at a coffeehouse, than the drip variety most people have at home. The paper filters in drip coffeemakers soak up the oils from the grounds, and thus some of the flavor. Plus, the water is in direct contact with the grounds the whole time it's brewing, rather than just briefly passing through a heap of grounds in the filter basket.
However, it's not quite as convenient as a drip coffeemaker. For one thing, you have to boil the water separately (I used a tea kettle). Since it's not electric, you can't just leave it sitting on the burner to keep warm. And as I said, it's best to serve it immediately, both to avoid bitter coffee from the grounds still in the bottom of the jug, and because it will only stay hot for so long unless you get something like this French press jacket. That makes it not quite as convenient if you're having a party or something and can't serve it right away. But if you already have a drip coffeemaker anyway, you could just use the French press and pour it into the drip's coffee pot and turn the burner on to keep it warm. This model also only makes "8 cups" (which is like 3.5 normal size mugs), as opposed to most drips that make "12."
The other down side is that, because the French press method leaves those delicious oils, that means it has "bad" cholesterol. But the same is true of coffeehouse coffee too.
But mmmmmmmmmm... I'm a fan.
4 Comments:
My mom is a huge tea feind, and she swears by her electric kettle. If you want hot water quickly, you could use that instead of a traditional kettle; the electric ones take about three minutes to reach boiling.
I got the electric kettle. :) A full litre [sic] takes about 5 minutes to boil, but that's because I use refrigerated Brita water. When I just used hot tap water, it was much quicker. I figured for 11 bucks I might as well try it. I also like how it has an automatic shutoff, so I can just plug it in and walk away. Nothing more exciting than waiting for water to boil.
It's now September, and here's a little follow-up to this post. The french press I bought in January has now cracked. Not the jug itself, which is quite sturdy, but the black plastic of the plunger, which holds the mesh screen in place, has cracked in many places. Just by the shape of the cracks, it is still able to hold the screen and rubber ring in place good enough that I can still probably use it a few more times, but I'm going to have to replace it. I used this thing about 5 times a week fairly consistently, and was gentle with it because of reviews I'd read on Amazon about this very problem.
I do have another, slightly larger french press I bought for the cottage, and it's all glass and metal, so I guess I'll be bringing that one home to use now. It's a big pain to clean though, first simply because the glass jug itself is heavy to hold and thus more prone to slipping out of one's hands when emptying the grounds (and obviously one doesn't want to tap it too hard to shake them loose), but also it's hard to get all the grounds out of the metal plunger, unlike my plastic one which I can just tap a few times and rinse.
You neglected to mention that coffee made in a French Press requires water just below boiling, not boiling water as you would use for black tea. Very important. And you must stir the coffe with plastic or wood, not metal, then wait four minutes before pushing down the press. Breville now makes an electric kettle that heats water at all the correct temperatures, such as for green tea,white tea, oolong tea, French Press, Black tea; as I am both a tea and French Press coffee drinker it is fantastic. Gree tea made with boiling water and then at the correct temperature are two very different experiences.
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