How do I use a cafetière properly?

A cafetière is the most forgiving brewer there is, which is why so much bad coffee comes out of one — it will make something drinkable from almost any technique, so nobody refines it. Two changes make a disproportionate difference: a genuinely coarse grind, and getting the coffee out of the pot the moment you plunge.

What you'll need

• Cafetière
• Coarse ground coffee
• Kettle
• Scales
• Timer
• Spoon

Step by step

1. Grind coarse — like sea salt or slightly coarser.Fine grounds pass through the mesh and keep extracting in your cup, which is why cafetière coffee goes bitter and silty.
2. Pre-warm the pot with hot water and discard it.A cold glass pot drops the brew temperature by several degrees immediately.
3. Add 60g of coffee per litre of water — about 30g for a standard 500ml pot.Weigh it. This is the number that most affects the result.
4. Pour water at 92–94°C over all the grounds, then stir gently.Every ground needs to be wet. Dry pockets simply don't contribute.
5. Put the lid on with the plunger up and wait 4 minutes.The lid keeps the heat in. The plunger stays up so nothing is compressed yet.
6. Break the crust with a spoon and skim off the foam and floating grounds.Most of the grounds sink at this point. Skimming removes the bitter foam that would otherwise end up in the cup.
7. Wait another 5 minutes if you can, then plunge slowly.The extra wait lets fines settle so you plunge through clearer liquid. Slow plunging avoids forcing grounds through the mesh.
8. Pour the whole pot out immediately, even if you're not drinking it all yet.Coffee left on the grounds keeps extracting and is bitter by the second cup. Decant into a warmed jug or flask.

Tips

• The most common cafetière mistake is leaving the coffee in the pot. Decanting is the single change that most improves the second cup.
• A four-minute brew followed by a five-minute settle before plunging gives a noticeably cleaner cup than plunging at four minutes.
• Clean the mesh assembly properly — unscrew it and wash the discs. Old oils trapped between them taste rancid.
• If you get a lot of sludge, your grind is too fine, not your cafetière too cheap.

Common mistakes

• Using pre-ground supermarket coffee — It's usually ground for filter or espresso, far too fine for a cafetière, which guarantees silt and bitterness.
• Leaving brewed coffee on the grounds — It continues extracting, and the second cup is markedly worse than the first.
• Plunging hard and fast — It forces fines through the mesh and stirs up sediment.
• Not skimming the crust — The foam holds much of the bitterness and it's easy to remove.

Questions people ask