Let's talk French press.
It's one of the easiest ways to make a full-bodied, rich cup of coffee at home. It's also one of the easiest ways to make a bitter, muddy mess that coats your teeth. The press isn't the problem. A few small habits are. Fix those and your dark roast goes from "eh" to damn good coffee.
If you drink our Tri-Blend Dark Roast or Send It Blend, French press is one of the methods we recommend right on the bag page. It brings out the dark chocolate, cocoa and nutty side of those coffees. Here's how to get there.
The Specs
- Coffee: A dark roast, freshly ground
- Ratio: 1:14 for a stronger cup, 1:16 for a balanced cup
- Example: About 30 g of coffee to 480 g of water (1:16), or about 34 g to 480 g (1:14)
- Grind: Coarse, like sea salt or a little coarser
- Water temp: 195 to 199°F
- Steep: 4 minutes, then skim, then wait 5 more
- Gear: French press, kettle, scale, two spoons, and a timer
Why Dark Roast Gets Bitter in a French Press
A French press is full immersion. Every bit of coffee sits in every bit of water the whole time. There's no paper filter to catch the fine particles or the oils. That's why you get the big body, and it's also why mistakes show up fast.
Dark roast makes this trickier. Like I said in What the fuck is bad dark roast, a dark roasted bean is porous and already wide open. It gives up its flavor easily. Hit it with water straight off the boil, let it sit too long, or grind it too fine, and you pull out the ashy, burnt stuff along with the good stuff.
So the whole game here is to be a little gentler with the coffee and a lot more patient with the cup.
How to Brew It
- Heat your water and let it rest. Bring it to a boil, then let it sit off the heat for a minute or so, until it's in the 195 to 199°F range. If you have a temp-control kettle, just set it.
- Preheat the press. Swirl some hot water in the empty beaker and dump it. A cold beaker steals heat from your brew.
- Grind right before you brew. Go coarse. Fine grounds slip through the metal mesh and turn into sludge.
- Add coffee, then all the water. Put the press on your scale, add the grounds, tare it, and pour all your water in. Give it a gentle stir so there are no dry clumps, then start your timer.
- Leave it alone for 4 minutes. A crust of grounds will form on top. Let it be.
- Break the crust and skim. At 4 minutes, gently stir the crust with a spoon. Most of it will sink. Use two spoons to scoop off the foam and floating bits that are left, and toss them.
- Wait 5 more minutes. This is the part everybody skips. The fine particles still floating around will settle to the bottom.
- Don't plunge all the way. Lower the plunger just until the screen touches the top of the coffee. Pushing it to the bottom stirs all that settled sludge right back into your cup.
- Pour slowly and leave the last bit. Pour gently and stop before you get to the silty dregs at the bottom. If you aren't drinking it all right away, pour it into a carafe so it stops steeping.
This recipe works because...
Lower temp keeps the ash out
Dark roasts don't need the hottest water to extract. Keeping it under 200°F gets you the chocolate and cocoa without dragging out the burnt, ashy notes. I go deeper into water temp in How to fix bitter tasting coffee.
Skimming takes the harsh stuff off the top
The foam and floating fines on the surface are some of the harshest, grittiest parts of the brew. Pulling them off makes a noticeably cleaner cup. This skim-and-wait move comes from James Hoffmann's "Ultimate French Press Technique," and it's worth a watch.
Waiting lets gravity do the filtering
A metal screen can only catch so much. Giving the fines a few minutes to sink, then not stirring them back up, gets you most of the clarity of a paper filter while keeping that heavy French press body.
Troubleshooting
- Bitter or ashy: Drop your water temp a few degrees. If your beans are really dark and oily, try the low end of the range. Make sure you're not leaving coffee sitting in the press after you pour.
- Weak or sour: Go a little finer on the grind, or use a 1:14 ratio. Make sure your water isn't cooling way down before you pour.
- Muddy or gritty: Your grind is too fine or too uneven. Go coarser, use a burr grinder (more on that in Grinding Whole Coffee Beans), and don't skip the skim and the wait.
- Tastes flat even though you did everything right: Check your water. If it doesn't taste good on its own, it won't make good coffee. Try filtered water.
Give It a Shot
This method takes about ten minutes, and most of that is waiting. Once you taste a clean, rich French press, you won't go back to the sludge.
If you want a dark roast that's built for this, Tri-Blend is a Kenyan, Colombian and Brazilian blend with dark chocolate, cocoa, nutmeg and a smoky finish. Want to try a few methods? Check out our Brew Guide.
Drink coffee. Work hard.