French Press

 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. Two French inventors patented in 1852 a forerunner of the French press. Wikipedia 

Just like any other coffee making device or system.  While simple not all are created the same.  Different sizes from 8 oz personal to restaurant serving sizes.  made from glass, plastic, or metal..ect

 It is called the French Press, so it must be French, right? Surprisingly, both French and Italian have argued about the origins of the coffee brewer which uses a metal or a cloth screen connected to a rod that presses down coffee grounds infusing in a pot of hot water. According to a legend dating back to 1850s, it was a Frenchmen on his daily walk, preparing a pot of coffee on an open fire, who first brewed his coffee this way, although it was rather an accident.

It went a bit like this: A Frenchmen was boiling his water when he realised he had forgotten to put the coffee in. Once added, the coffee grounds rose to the surface of the boiling pot. He wanted to save the only portion of coffee he had with him and bought a piece of metal screen from a passing-by Italian merchant. Fitting the screen over the boiling pot, he used a stick to press the screen down, together with the coffee grounds. And how was the coffee? He expected it to be terrible, but the result turned out to be the best coffee both men had ever tasted. An accident led to a discovery of a new way of brewing coffee.

We chose to call the brewer by its Frenchified version despite the fact the first patent of the coffee brewer as we know it today came from Italians. French Press is also called la (a) cafetière, a coffee plunger, or a coffee press in different parts of the world. Today, it is celebrated for the ease of use, the rich brews it provides, and a certain flair that the brewer has kept throughout the times of its design development.

The first documented origins of the “most underrated method of brewing coffee”, as James Hoffmann called it in his book ‘The World Atlas of Coffee’, date back to 1852. It was Mayer and Delforge, two Frenchmen, who had their innovation—a simpler version of the later designs—patented then.

Nevertheless, it was not until 1928 in Italy that the first patents were registered by Attilio Calimani and Giulio Moneta. Their invention, similar to the very first designs by Mayer and Delforge, was  characterized as a “vessel adapted to contain a liquid, as f.i. water whereinto substance to be infused, as for instance coffee in powdered form is poured with a slidable filtering member having a fit sufficiently tight within said vessel in such a manner that, causing by suitable means the said member to slide towards the bottom of the vessel the infusion will be rapidly filtered to get it ready for use.”

A brief look into the patents registered in the United States will tell us that many enhancements to the original brewing device had a patent applied for. All were of a similar principle, making some additional changes to the basic design of the French Press. But the next significant redesign was achieved by Faliero Bondanini.

The Italian designer had his version patented in 1958. Classified under “Apparatus in which ground coffee or tea-leaves are immersed in the hot liquid in the beverage container having immersible, e.g. rotatable, filters”, the brewer that first gained popularity on the European market was produced and distributed by a French company Martin S.A. under the name Chambord.

Chambord is a classic. Many will recognise its design features—a glass vessel, a steel lid, a round handle of the rod—which has been preserved throughout times. The company Martin S.A. produced it until 1991 when the company was bought by the Danish Bodum Holding. Bodum has since 1991 kept the Chambord design alive in its range of household products, making it one of the most recognised home-brewing coffee devices.

There was another, almost twin, design at the same time as the Chambord became popular, back in the 1960s. Martin S.A.’s investor Louis James de Viel Castel had another company based in Britain, called Household Articles Ltd., which produced a coffee maker under the name La Cafetière. In 1991, when Martin S.A. was bought by Bodum, de Viel Castel lost his right to distribute his product in France under any names.

We can attribute the wide range of names of the brewing device to the many European countries where the French Press, la cafetière, or the coffee plunger found its permanent place on the kitchen shelves throughout times.

 The term French Roast describes the color of the bean after it has been roasted and is traditionally the darkest on the scale of roasts. French roasted coffee tends to have a dark chocolate color, with a smokey, rich flavor. It is believed to have been coined in the 19th century to describe the type of coffee that was being roasted in Europe.

• dark Freanch Roast
  

While some folks use the term French Roast to describe a dark roasted coffee, the Specialty Coffee Association of America uses a specific tool to measure the color of the beans. The tool is called an Agtron Coffee Roast Analyzer and uses light to scan the coffee beans. The machine’s output is a number which is associated with a roast color level. This helps prevent ambiguity and is more accurate for measuring and roasting consistent coffees. The Agtron scale ranges from a very light brown color score of #95 to an extremely dark almost black color score of #25. A typical French Roast will have an Agtron Score between 28 and 35.you can see three levels of roasts.

It is important to note that French Roast is a characteristic of the roast, but not necessarily the beans themselves.  It can use single-origin beans from Brazil or Kenya, or it can also be a blend of beans. Conquistador is a single-origin coffee from Costa Rica and has a French roast color profile with an Agtron score of #32. Our French Roast is a blend of beans from Central and South America that are roasted dark with an Agtron score of #31.6.Are your customers raving about you on social media? Share their great stories to help turn potential customers into loyal ones.

From low end coffee bean grinders to expensive coffee grinders,  they are labeled  Espresso on one side of the grind scale and the far opposite is often called French press grind.  Why?   The French press is an immersion method of brewing, which means that the beans have an opportunity to extract for longer than in other methods. Because of this, we usually use a coarser grind to keep the extraction slow and avoid over-extraction. In a pour over, using a finer grind can impede the flow of water.   it is often in Baristia conversation to say things  like "  for making cold  brew grind your beans as you would French Press"... this could be just because cold brew is newer and fress press methods are already established.