How to Use a French Press? Million-View Extraction Tips! What Grind Coarseness? Can You Use Boiling Water for Coffee Extraction?

The French press may well be the simplest coffee brewer there is. With its rock-bottom price and effortless operation, it has earned a huge following.

The French press was born in the 1850s under a far more formal name: the "piston filtering coffee device." It was invented in France by two Frenchmen, Mayer and Delforge. After they filed the patent, the device was given a simpler, clearer name for the market — the French press.

As the picture shows, that first-generation design differs little from today's: a container with a plunger filter. You add coffee and water, let it steep, then press the filter down to separate the liquid — and the coffee is done. The original, however, had no mechanism to keep the filter level as it descended, so the screen would easily tilt mid-press, letting grounds escape into the cup and leaving you with a mouthful of sediment. In the early 20th century an Italian fixed this flaw, giving us the spring-loaded French press we know today.

The Importance of Parameters

Simple as it is, a great-tasting French press still takes some care. James Hoffmann, author of The World Atlas of Coffee, stressed the importance of dialing in each parameter in his French press video on YouTube.

FrontStreet Coffee has covered those details in earlier articles, so you can search for them if you're curious. The key point here is the specific French press method he laid out, which many enthusiasts have endorsed, claiming it produces coffee remarkably close to a pour-over. So today FrontStreet Coffee will put Mr. Hoffmann's method to the test and see whether it really lives up to the hype.

The Extraction Experiment

For this test, FrontStreet Coffee used Ethiopia Gesha Village Red Label, a medium-light roasted, fruit-acid-forward coffee. The extraction parameters were:

Coffee dosage: 15g (adjust to your French press size)
Coffee-to-water ratio: 1:16
Grind size: Ek43 at 10.5, 70% pass-through on a #20 sieve, coarse-sugar-like particles
Water temperature: 100°C
Steeping time: 9 minutes

With everything ready, we started the extraction!

① First, add the coffee and boiling water to the French press, start the timer, and wait four minutes.

② When time is up, use a spoon to gently press the crust of floating grounds into the water, then wait another five minutes.

③ Next, place the lid on the press and push the plunger down only to the surface of the coffee.

④ Finally, pour the coffee out slowly and steadily so as to disturb as few fines as possible, and enjoy.

Tasting and Evaluation

The whole process is very simple — the hardest part is the waiting. On tasting, FrontStreet Coffee found this cup genuinely impressive: the citrus and strawberry notes of Gesha Village Red Label came through clearly, with a rich mouthfeel and balanced flavor. Crucially, the extraction was right on target — neither sour and thin from under-extraction, nor harsh and bitter from over-extraction. Although the parameters suggest very high extraction efficiency (a long steep, boiling water), we barely disturbed the brew during steeping, and the water kept cooling the whole time. The factors offset each other, landing the extraction right where it should be.

Can it match a pour-over? Honestly, no — the extraction principles are fundamentally different, so comparison misses the point. Judged on its own merits, though, it's an excellent cup, and the method is simple and convenient. Well worth a try.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Because a French press is a full-immersion brewer with a metal mesh, it produces rich oils and a heavier, fuller body — which suits medium and dark roasts best. Here are two FrontStreet Coffee picks:

FrontStreet Strawberry Candy (Geisha Blend): A custom blend of Costa Rica honey-process coffee and Panama washed Geisha that captures the best of Central American flavor. Steeped in a French press it releases rose, citrus, grape, and dried blueberry aromas, and with milk it turns into a strawberry-soft-candy treat. A lovely pick if you prefer fragrant, bright-style coffee.

FrontStreet PWN Golden Mandheling: If you want a low-acid black coffee with a full, oily body, start here. One of Asia's most celebrated specialty coffees, it goes through three rounds of hand sorting plus one machine pass, then a medium-dark roast that develops rich spice, caramel, cedar, and dark chocolate aromas. In the French press it delivers a mellow, heavy mouthfeel with pleasant crema.