French Press

A French press is the least mechanical way to make good coffee, and that is both the appeal and the catch. Nothing meters the water, nothing regulates the temperature, and the filter is a screen rather than a barrier. What you buy is a vessel and a mesh, so the mesh is where the money should go.

Filtration is 26 of the 100 points, and here is why

Brew Quality and Filtration is the heaviest criterion in the category, because it is the one that decides whether the last inch of the cup is drinkable. A metal screen does not trap oils and fines the way paper does. That is the point of the method, and it is why press coffee has more body than filter coffee, but it also means a poor screen puts silt in the cup.

Two published specs move this number. Filter layers: a single coiled screen is the minimum, and stacked three and four layer assemblies catch progressively more of what the layer above passes, at the cost of a slower plunge. A dual micro-filter of the ESPRO kind goes further again. Fit: a screen that does not meet the wall lets grounds past regardless of how many layers it has, which is why a press that arrives slightly out of round never comes right.

The grind matters as much as the press. A press wants a coarse, even grind, and a cheap grinder producing fines will put silt in the cup through any filter on this page. If you are buying both, spend on the grinder first.

Heat retention is worth 16, and glass gives it away

A press steeps for four minutes with the lid on and no heat source. A single-walled borosilicate beaker sheds heat through that whole steep; a double-walled stainless body does not. That is the entire argument for steel, and it is why the vacuum-walled models score above the glass ones here even when the filter is the same.

Glass buys you something back: you can see the bloom, it does not hold odours, and it is cheaper. For a press used at the table and poured out immediately, that trade is fine. For one that sits while you drink a second cup, it is not.

What to ignore

Cup counts. A "12 cup" press is measured in 4 oz cups and holds about 1.5 litres, and the same body is sold as 8, 10 or 12 cups depending on the seller. Read the millilitres, which we list on every product page.

Colour ranges and bundled scoops. Neither changes the coffee, and both are where a thin spec sheet goes to look full.