Cafetière

The cafetière is the most forgiving way to make coffee there is. Coffee, hot water, four minutes, plunge. Get the grind and the ratio right and it makes a deep, heavy cup that tastes like the coffee, every time.

Coffee: 60g per litre
Water: 1 litre makes four mugs
Grind: Medium, like sea salt
Time: 4 minutes
Temperature: Off the boil, about 94°C

Best for: A pot for two or more. Deep, dark coffee with some weight to it, and nothing to learn.

You will need: Cafetière, medium ground coffee, kettle, scales (optional), a spoon

Coffee for the Cafetière

Ground for this method, so the grind is already right. Or beans, if you have a grinder.

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Half-Caff Brunch Blend Ground Coffee - 200g
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£6.80 on subscription · 57p a coffee
Bodum Kenya Small Cafetière

~~£10.00~~ £8.00 (Save 20%)
Nerethus Small Cafetière

~~£7.50~~ £6.00 (Save 20%)
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Nerethus Large Cafetière

~~£14.00~~ £11.20 (Save 20%)

See all Cafetières & Ground Coffee

How to make it

1

Warm the pot

Swill some hot water round the empty cafetière and tip it away. A cold glass pot pulls heat out of the brew, and a cooler brew is a weaker one.
2

Weigh the coffee

60g of medium ground coffee for a litre of water. So 30g for a half-litre pot, 15g for a mug. Scales beat spoons here: a heaped tablespoon can be anywhere from 5 to 9 grams depending on how it is packed.
No scales? Four level tablespoons a litre gets you close enough to start.
3

Add the water

Boil the kettle, then leave it for 30 seconds. You want water just off the boil, around 94 degrees. Boiling water scorches the coffee and pulls the bitter notes out first.
Pour it all in, make sure every bit of coffee is wet, and start the clock.
4

Four minutes, one stir

At about two minutes a crust of grounds sits on top. Give it one gentle stir to break it, so the coffee underneath keeps brewing evenly. Then leave it alone.
Four minutes is the sweet spot for a medium grind. Less and the cup is thin. Much more and the bitterness creeps in.
5

Plunge slowly

Lid on, then press the plunger down slowly, over about 20 seconds. A fast plunge forces fine grounds through the mesh and stirs up the sediment. If it takes real force to move, the grind is too fine.
6

Pour every cup now

Pour it all straight away, into cups or a warm jug. Coffee left sitting on the grounds keeps extracting and turns bitter inside ten minutes. Leave the last centimetre in the pot, that is where the sediment lives.
Rinse the mesh under the tap and it is ready for the next one.
The same pot makes cold brew too: cold water, a night in the fridge, no kettle. Or freeze a pot as coffee ice cubes for iced coffee that never goes watery.

If it tastes wrong

What you taste	What to change
Bitter or harsh	The grind is too fine, the water went in boiling, or it sat on the grounds. Go coarser, wait 30 seconds off the boil, pour straight after plunging.
Thin, weak or sour	Too little coffee, or too coarse a grind. Weigh 60g a litre and go one step finer.
Sludge in the bottom of the cup	Too fine a grind, or a fast plunge. Medium grind, press slowly, and leave the last centimetre in the pot.
The plunger will not go down	The grind is too fine for the mesh. Pull up, wait a minute, press again gently. Next time, coarser.

The kit

Nerethus Small Cafetière

~~£7.50~~ £6.00 (Save 20%)
Email me when it's back
Nerethus Large Cafetière

~~£14.00~~ £11.20 (Save 20%)
Bodum Kenya Small Cafetière

~~£10.00~~ £8.00 (Save 20%)
Bodum Kenya Large Cafetière

~~£18.00~~ £14.40 (Save 20%)
Email me when it's back

See all Cafetières

Common questions

What grind do I need for a cafetière?

Medium, about the size of sea salt. Our ground coffee is milled for a cafetière and a filter, so it is right straight out of the bag. Too fine and you get sludge and bitterness. Too coarse and you get a thin cup.

How much coffee should I use?

60 grams a litre, so 15 grams a mug. Weigh it if you can. A tablespoon is not a unit of coffee: heaped or level, packed or loose, it swings by almost double.

What water temperature?

Just off the boil, about 94 degrees. Boil the kettle and count to 30 before you pour. Boiling water pulls the bitter compounds out first.

Why does my cafetière coffee taste bitter?

Three usual causes, in order: the grind is too fine, the water went in boiling, or the coffee sat on the grounds after plunging. Fix them in that order. If it is still bitter, try a smoother blend. Brunch Blend is the one most people land on.

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