How to Make French Press Coffee: History, Ratios & a NOLA Twist
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The French press might be the friendliest way to make a serious cup of coffee. No paper filters, no fussy gear, no barista training. Just coffee, hot water, and a few minutes of patience. What comes out is rich, full-bodied, and honest, the kind of cup that tastes like the beans instead of the machine.
Here's the fun part. The French press isn't as French as the name suggests, and the story of how it got that name runs right through the same coffee culture that built New Orleans.
The French Press Was Barely French
Start with a small surprise. The device most Americans call a French press was largely designed by Italians.
The first modern version came from Milan, where designers Attilio Calimani and Giulio Moneta patented a press with a spring-sealed filter in the late 1920s, filing in the United States in 1929. Thirty years later, another Italian, Faliero Bondanini, refined the design and patented his own version in 1958. His press was manufactured in France, in an old clarinet factory run by a company called Martin S.A., and sold first as the Melior and later as the Chambord. That French-made model is the one that swept across Europe and became the classic shape still sold worldwide today.
So the name is a bit of an accident of geography. Italians drew it up, the French built and sold it, and North America started calling it "French press." The French themselves call it a cafetière à piston. The Italians say caffettiera a stantuffo. The British just say cafetière. One brewer, a passport full of names.
It earned the "French" label the way a lot of coffee did, through French hands and French taste. Which brings us home.
The French Thread to New Orleans
New Orleans is a French city by birth. The French founded it in 1718, and they brought coffee with them as they settled along the Gulf and the Mississippi in the early 1700s. Coffee wasn't an import the city adopted later. It arrived with the founders and never left.
That French influence shaped how the city drinks to this day. Café au lait, equal parts strong coffee and hot milk, is a French idea that New Orleans made its own and served alongside beignets until the two became inseparable. Even the city's signature chicory blend traces back to France, where blending roasted chicory root into coffee became common during the Napoleonic blockades. New Orleans inherited that habit and leaned into it hard during the Civil War, then kept it long after the reason for it was gone. We told that whole story in Chicory Coffee: The Bitter Root Behind New Orleans' Most Iconic Cup.
The old French Market became the beating heart of that coffee culture, with vendors like the legendary Rose Nicaud selling cups to the crowds long before coffee stands were fashionable. Same French roots, different branch of the same tree as the press.
No, nobody invented the French press on Decatur Street. But the French current that carried coffee to New Orleans is the same one that gave the press its name. And it happens to be one of the best tools for brewing the kind of coffee this city loves.
Why the French Press Loves New Orleans Coffee
Here's the practical payoff. The French press is a full-immersion brewer, which means the grounds sit in the water the whole time and the metal filter lets the coffee's oils and body pass straight into your cup. Nothing gets stripped out.
That matters for New Orleans coffee specifically. A good chicory blend is prized for its round, silky body, and the French press preserves every bit of it. Where a paper filter would thin things out, the press keeps the cup heavy and satisfying, which is exactly what stands up to hot milk in a café au lait. If you want to taste why this pairing works, this is the method to reach for.
How to Make French Press Coffee, Step by Step
The French press is forgiving, but a few details separate a great cup from a muddy one. Here's the reliable way.
Start with a coarse grind. Your grounds should look like coarse sea salt or raw sugar. Grind too fine and you'll get bitterness and silt in the cup, since the long steep pulls hard on small particles.
Use a ratio around 1:15 to 1:16. That's one part coffee to fifteen or sixteen parts water by weight. A reliable starting point is 30 grams of coffee to 500 grams of water, which fills a standard press and serves two. No scale handy? Roughly three tablespoons of coffee per cup of water gets you close.
Preheat the press. Swirl a little hot water inside and pour it out. A warm carafe holds temperature and brews more evenly.
Add coffee, then bloom. Drop in the grounds, then pour in just enough water off the boil, around 200 degrees, to soak them completely. Wait about 45 seconds. This bloom lets fresh coffee release its trapped gas so the flavor comes through clean.
Fill, stir, and steep. Pour in the rest of the water, give it one gentle stir, and set the lid on with the plunger up. Let it steep for four minutes total.
Break the crust and press. At four minutes, a layer of grounds will have risen to the top. Stir it once so it settles, then press the plunger down slow and steady. Rushing it stirs up sediment and turns the cup gritty.
Pour it all out. Decant the whole press into cups or a carafe right away. Coffee left sitting on the grounds keeps extracting and turns bitter, so empty it even if you're only drinking one cup now.
That's the whole method. Coarse grind, right ratio, four minutes, gentle press. Once it becomes muscle memory you'll never miss the paper filters.
Make It a New Orleans Cup
Want the real thing? Brew a New Orleans chicory blend in your press and you get the full body the method is built for. Take it to café au lait by adding an equal pour of hot scalded milk, and you've recreated the city's signature cup in your own kitchen.
Our Root Note blend is made for exactly this: specialty beans roasted small-batch here in New Orleans, blended with chicory for that deep, round, milk-ready body. The French press brings it all the way out.
Brassline Roasters. Small-batch specialty coffee roasted in New Orleans. The rhythm of daily ritual.
Sources: Wikipedia (French press); European Coffee Trip; Sprudge; Perfect Daily Grind; Café du Monde; French Market Coffee; NESCAFÉ Coffee Culture.