The French Press Coffee Maker: Connoisseur Equipment
Ask any connoisseur how he likes his coffee. French Press Coffee
Maker coffee is the answer you'll get, in nine cases out of ten.
Coffee lovers all over the world mostly agree that the French
Press Coffee Maker is the best equipment for brewing coffee. It
preserves the full flavor of the oils, and delivers your
favorite drink in a smooth, creamy and rich brew.
A French Press Coffee Maker is essentially a tall narrow glass
cylinder fitted with a plunger that includes a filter. The
coffee and hot water are mixed in the cylinder (usually for not
more than a few minutes), and then the plunger, in the form of a
metal foil, is pressed down, leaving the coffee at the top ready
to be poured. A French Press Coffee Maker is also called a
cafetiere, a 'plunger' or a 'press pot'. Using a French Press
Coffee Maker, you can manually control the water temperature and
exposure time that results in a steaming and tantalizing rich
cup of coffee.
There are several methods of brewing coffee - boiling (think
Turkish coffee), pressure brewing (espresso being an example),
drip brewing (as in the electric percolator), and steeping. The
French press is an example of this last technology, and is said
to preserve most of the natural aroma and flavor of the coffee
beans.
High-quality French presses most often use conical burr grinders
as their source of ground coffee, because these grinders rotate
at low speeds (usually not more than five hundred revolutions
per minute). This prevents the grinding from generating too much
heat. Other methods that use faster grinding techniques stand
the risk of heating the ground coffee too much, making the
delicate flavoring oils to evaporate.