How to Make Cafetière Coffee: Grind, Ratio and Timing

How do you make cafetière coffee?

Warm the jug, add coarse-ground coffee at 60g per litre, pour water just off the boil, stir, fit the lid and plunger without pressing down, wait four minutes, plunge slowly, then pour every last drop out into cups or a warmed jug. Coffee left on the grounds keeps extracting and turns bitter.

The step people leave out is the last one. A cafetière does not stop brewing when you plunge — the grounds stay in the water, and a cup poured twenty minutes later tastes noticeably harsher than the first. Decanting is the difference between one good cup and one good cup followed by two bad ones.

The other commonly skipped step is keeping the lid on during the steep: a 1L glass press sheds heat fast, and brewing temperature dropping mid-steep is a real cause of thin, sour coffee. One rule from Mumsnet owners is worth adopting too — with a glass press, stir with a wooden or plastic spoon, never metal.

1. Rinse the empty jug with hot water and tip it out to preheat it.
2. Weigh 60g of coarse-ground coffee per litre of water (30g for a 500ml brew).
3. Pour water just off the boil, around 93-96°C, over all the grounds.
4. Stir gently with a wooden or plastic spoon to break the crust.
5. Rest the lid and plunger on top without pressing down; leave four minutes.
6. Plunge slowly and steadily — do not squash the grounds flat.
7. Pour the whole press out immediately into cups or a warmed jug.

What grind size should you use?

Coarse — roughly the texture of coarse sea salt or breadcrumbs. Anything finer slips through the metal mesh, makes the plunge stiff and over-extracts into bitterness across a four-minute steep. If you buy pre-ground, ask specifically for a cafetière or French press grind; supermarket 'filter' grind is usually too fine.

Grind consistency matters as much as grind size, and this is where the pot gets blamed for the grinder's failings. A cheap blade grinder produces boulders and dust in the same batch: the dust passes straight through the mesh as sludge, while the boulders never fully extract, so the coffee is simultaneously muddy and weak.

This is the highest-return upgrade in cafetière brewing, and UK coffee forum users are close to unanimous on it. A £30 burr grinder with a £20 press beats a £70 press filled with stale pre-ground every time.

How much coffee per cup or per litre?

60g of coffee per litre of water — about a 1:16 ratio. That is 30g for a 500ml brew and 60g for a full 1L eight-cup press. Adjust in 10g-per-litre steps to taste rather than changing the steep time, which alters what you extract rather than how much.

The trap is the cup rating on the box. A cafetière “cup” is a 120-125ml continental measure, not a mug — so a three-cup press holds about 350ml, which is one decent mug, and a twelve-cup holds 1.5 litres. Buyers who assume mugs end up with a press half the size they wanted, and a half-empty press brews less consistently because the grounds sit shallow.

The owner rule of thumb from Mumsnet is two heaped tablespoons per mugful of water, which lands in roughly the same place without scales. It is a fine starting point; scales are simply more repeatable, and repeatability is what lets you tell whether a change improved anything.

How long should it brew before you plunge?

Four minutes is the standard, and it is a good default. UK owners commonly go to five, which suits a coarser grind or a cooler kitchen. Beyond about five minutes you are extracting bitterness rather than strength — if the coffee is weak at four minutes, add coffee rather than time.

Steep time and dose do different jobs. More coffee makes a stronger cup of the same flavour; more time pulls progressively harsher compounds out of the same grounds. That is why four minutes is fairly rigid while 60g per litre is a starting point you are meant to move.

Two owner refinements are worth knowing. Keep the lid and plunger sitting on top throughout so the brew does not lose heat. And if the grounds floating on the surface bother you, skim the crust off with a spoon before plunging — it visibly reduces sediment.

What water temperature works best?

Around 93-96°C, which is water just off a full boil. Practically: boil the kettle, take the lid off the cafetière and let the kettle stand for about thirty seconds before pouring. Water straight off a rolling boil scalds the grounds and is one of the four standard causes of bitter press coffee.

The other three standard causes of bitterness are a grind that is too fine, steeping much beyond four minutes, and leaving brewed coffee on the grounds. Work through those in order before blaming the beans.

In a hard-water area there is a second consideration: what is in the water as well as how hot it is. Limescale changes the taste of anything you brew, so it is worth descaling the kettle regularly if the coffee has started tasting flat and chalky rather than bitter — different fault, different fix.

Should you preheat the jug?

Yes, and it takes ten seconds. Rinse the empty press with hot water and tip it out before adding coffee. A cold jug — glass, steel or stoneware — pulls heat straight out of the brew, and a steep that starts at 95°C and finishes at 80°C under-extracts and tastes thin.

Preheating matters most for the materials people assume need it least. Le Creuset's stoneware press is the example: it is usually described as holding heat far better than glass, and Mumsnet owners recommend it with exactly that caveat attached — heat it with hot water first. But one independent head-to-head test of five presses found the Le Creuset was actually the poorest heat retainer of the group.

We would not treat a single comparison as settled, and it may partly reflect a cold pot rather than the material. The cautious conclusion stands either way: do not buy any press for heat retention alone, and preheat whatever you own. If keeping coffee hot is the priority, a double-walled vacuum stainless press does it structurally.

Which beans suit a cafetière?

Bold, full-bodied coffees hold up best, because immersion brewing produces a heavy cup that can bury delicate flavours. Sumatra is the specific recommendation UK coffee forum users give people who do not know where to start. Buy whole beans and grind coarse just before brewing — freshness beats origin every time.

Roast level is more useful to think about than origin. Medium and darker roasts give the body most people picture when they think of cafetière coffee; light, fruity speciality roasts expose every flaw in your technique and are generally happier in a pour-over. The freshness rule outranks all of it: pre-ground coffee goes stale within days of opening, and no press, ratio or timer recovers what has gone.

If this sounds like more ceremony than you want on a weekday, that is a legitimate answer — it is the trade-off that pushes people towards a machine that does it for you. And if your problem is sediment rather than flavour, the filter design starts to matter: our Bodum vs Espro comparison covers what a double micro-filter actually changes.