Two weeks ago, I griped about my sub-par coffee on this blog and two weeks later I’ve finally dusted off my french press so I could make coffee the real way.  I’m a sucker for not pulling this little friend of mine out of the cabinet sooner.  It ALMOST felt like a French cafe in here this morning (note: coffee in most of Europe will make you rue Starbucks.  Promise.)

This brigade coffee mug is the only clear one we have…OPSEC in order!

Anyway, here’s how I make french pressed coffee, followed by a couple of expert tutorials (because I’m sure I screw this up somehow)

1.  Secure some freshly roasted beans.  Ideally you’d be an expert who roasts your own, but barring that you’d order some directly from a supplier or pick them up in a super-hip and dedicated to brew coffee shop.  I now live in a place with no super-hip coffee shops and added to my impatience this means grocery store.  I picked Peet’s French Roast.

2.  Grind ‘em.  I use this grinder.  I think it’s a fairly typical amateur grinder.  I’m not buying a $100 one, so this is it!  All evidence tells me to grind coarse so I do.

3.  Transfer the ground beans to the press.  Some of the tutorials I watched have a silly-precise weighing technique for determining how much coffee to use.  There’s no chance of me doing this, so I use the little scoop that came with my press as my measure.

4.  Heat up the water.  The really cool presses can be bought with matching electric kettles but that’s another outlay of cash I’m not making, so I just use my tea kettle.  I usually wait for the kettle to scream and then let it cool down a bit so the water’s not still boiling.

5.  Pour the water over the grounds.  Leave an inch or so at the top  of the press and I always give it a quick stir because I’m OCD.

6.  Wait.  The experts below say to wait 2-4 minutes.  I can’t say I’ve ever timed it…I usually wait long enough to scroll through some Facebook updates and put any dirty dishes in the dishwasher.  I’m betting that’s about 3 minutes.

7.  Take the plunge.  Slowly push the plunger down to filter out the grounds.  Pour that coffee and serve.

As I said, I’m sure I’m doing some things wrong so I’ve provided two YouTube tutorials here.  The first one I’m calling “Way Too Particular” because that’s how it comes across to me, but you detail folks may like it.  The second I’m calling “Perfect” because it’s Alton Brown and that’s how I regard him.    The only thing missing?  A tutorial for cleaning up afterwards – not too keen on tossing those grounds down the drain…