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A French press, also known as a cafetière, cafetière à piston, caffettiera a stantuffo, press pot, coffee press, or coffee plunger, is a coffee brewing device, although it can also be used for other tasks.
In 1812, Benjamin Thompson invented a drip-press coffee brewing device In 1852, Jacques-Victor Delforge and Henri-Otto Mayer patented a device in France.
In 1928, a coffee press was created by Milanese designers Giulio Moneta and Attilio Calimani which had a spring to seal the filter, and patented it in the United States in 1929. Apparatus for preparing infusions, particularly for preparing coffee Google Patents It underwent several design modifications through Faliero Bondanini, who patented his own version in 1958 and manufactured it in French clarinet factory Martin SA under the brand name Melior. (Its popularity may have been aided in 1965 by its use in the Michael Caine film The Ipcress File.) The device was litigated and further popularized throughout Europe by Melior-Martin, a French company, Household Articles Ltd. (La Cafetiere), a British company, and Bodum (Chambord), a Danish tableware and kitchenware company.
The modern French press consists of a narrow cylindrical beaker, usually made of glass or clear plastic, equipped with a metal or plastic lid and plunger that fits tightly in the cylinder and has a fine stainless steel wire or nylon mesh filter.
A French press works best with coffee of a coarser grind, about the consistency of kosher salt. Finer coffee grounds, when immersed in water, have lower permeability, requiring an excessive amount of force to be applied by hand to lower the plunger and are more likely to seep through or around the perimeter of the press filter and into the coffee drink. Additionally, finer grounds will tend to over-extract and cause the coffee to taste bitter.
Some writers give the optimal time for brewing as around four minutes. Other approaches, such as cold brewing, require several hours of contact between the water and the grounds to achieve the desired extraction.
Plunging slowly prevents accidental scalding of the brewer and is purported to maximize the extraction of the oils and flavonoids from the ground bean. The mesh piston normally does not compress the coffee grounds, as most designs leave a generous space—about —below the piston in its lowest position. If the brewed coffee is allowed to remain in the beaker with the used grounds, the coffee may become astringent and bitter, though this is an effect that some users of the French press consider desirable.
Other versions include stainless steel, insulated presses designed to keep the coffee hot, similar in design to thermos flasks. Coffee filters commonly used in South Indian households are a stainless steel version but without insulation. The decant known as decoction is mixed immediately with milk and sugar to make kaapi.
One variation also called "French pull" or "reverse French press" uses a pull-design: the coffee grounds are placed in a mesh basket, which is then pulled into the lid after brewing, trapping the grounds out of the coffee. Others produce a similar effect by having shutters that can be closed via the top of the press, sealing the grounds off from the coffee entirely. French presses are also sometimes used to make cold brew coffee.
Another variation using a basket to hold the coffee grounds is called "American press", where the hot water is filled in first and then the basket is slowly pushed down (and sometimes also pulled up again) through the water column.
An all-in-one French press consists of a heating element that can receive its power from a 12-volt power source.
A French press can also be used for straining broth from shellfish or other ingredients.
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