The Roast-Den® Blog

Making the Perfect Cafetiere

Having invested a little more money in Speciality beans, it is important that you make the most of your outlay by brewing your coffee correctly. For many people making a coffee cafetiere is a simple case of spooning some grinds into the vessel, pouring in a boiling kettle of water and giving the mixture a quick stir -- but paying attention to the following details will pay big dividends in terms of taste. This is a detailed 17 Step process for creating a Perfect Cafetiere of coffee:

1. Start with good quality Speciality Coffee Beans (click here to shop)

2. Grind the Beans to a Coarse Grind (similar to fresh ground pepper corns from a pepper mill).

3. Boil a kettle (if you have temperature control on you kettle set to 95 deg C, else leave to cool for 2 mins).

4. Warm your cafetière with hot water from the kettle, being careful not to burn yourself. Pour some hot water into the cafetière and swirl it around gently then discard the water.

5. Add the freshly ground coffee into the cafetière (you will need approximately 7g per 150-175ml of water, which can be adjusted to taste) you can experiment with this to find out what the best dosing rate is.

6. Smell the Dry Fragrance of your beans (this will begin to open your senses to the sweet fruit flavours that the coffee will deliver).

7. By now the water in your kettle should have cooled to around 93 Deg C. Pour the water into the grinds until the grinds are just soaked and no more.

8. Leave the grinds to “Bloom” - you should see the grinds expand and open slightly like a blooming flower.

9. Smell the wet grinds and you will notice a huge difference between the Dry Fragrance and the Wet Aroma (this step will further open your senses to the flavours you will experience when drinking your coffee).

10. In a circular motion, slowly pour the water into the cafetière until it is just 1.5cm below the spout.

11. Rest the plunger mesh on top of the mixture and allow the cap to sit on top of the cafetière (do not plunge yet)

12. Leave for 2 mins then lift off the plunger, stir the coffee and replace the plunger as before (sitting on top of the coffee mixture - Do Not plunge yet!).

13. Wait a further 2 minutes - the water will now have extracted the essential oils and flavours from the coffee grinds.

14. Plunge slowly by pushing the plunger rod gently down - the grinds will be pushed to the bottom and held down there by the mesh filter.

15. Pour a small amount of coffee into a clean cup and take a sip - if you feel additional extraction is necessary you can pull the plunger rod up and leave for another minute before returning to step 14 above (the action of extracting the plunger up to the top of the cafetiere will create a current that will mix the grinds, so no need to stir again).

16. Pour the coffee into your cup, add sugar and milk to taste (we always recommend trying speciality coffees without any additions such as sugar, milk or cream but the most important aspect of all is your enjoyment so if you need to add anything, do so now).

17. Relax and Enjoy the Coffee!