For Cafetiere
What is French press coffee?
A Cafetiere, or French press, is a coffee machine that brews coffee by immersing ground coffee in hot water and then separating the grounds from the coffee by pressing down the filter. When using a French press, it’s important to keep the temperature within a range of 90-100 degrees c, depending on your desired flavour profile. If you brew coffee below 90 degrees C, you won’t extract the full potential from the coffee resulting in an undesirable cup.
The biggest advantage of a cafetiere, or French press, is that you can use any type of ground coffee with it. You don’t have to buy pre-ground coffee, which doesn’t always taste as fresh as whole beans, unless freshly ground and roasted as Iron and Fire do! The biggest advantage of a cafetiere is its ease of use and versatility, you can use a wide range of different grind sizes, and it virtually takes no skill to create a fantastic cup of coffee. Our coffee bean experts have handpicked a range of coffee beans that we feel will work well when brewed using a cafetiere. See our brew guides for help and check out our suggestions below for the best coffees for a cafetiere.
Showing 1–12 of 15 results
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Colombian Jazz Speciality Coffee
£5.20 – £21.50 — or subscribe and save 10%Our most popular award winning coffee. Ethically sourced Colombian coffee beans with rich chocolate and caramel notes and a pleasant cherry acidity.
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Low Caffeine Award Winning Coffee
£6.00 – £25.00 — or subscribe and save 10%With 50% decaf beans, this is a perfect ‘go to’ late afternoon coffee. Enjoy a full bodied mouth feel with smooth, sweet undertones and a bright finish.
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Roaster’s Choice Speciality Coffee
£3.20 – £24.90 — or subscribe and save 10%A surprise delivery consisting of the very best of what is roasted this week. Subscribe to enjoy a range of speciality coffees, a different one each time.
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Costa Rican Tres Nubes Speciality Coffee
£6.70 – £27.80 — or subscribe and save 10%These beautiful Costa Rican coffee beans are very versatile. A rich chocolatey coffee with mandarin notes, it works well with all espresso based drinks.
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Nicaraguan Jinotega Organic Coffee
£6.20 – £25.00 — or subscribe and save 10%A beautiful medium bodied organic & Fair Trade coffee with a sweet honey finish. Carefully roasted to bring out the delicious apricot notes throughout.
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On The Rocks Coffee
£6.89 – £28.80 — or subscribe and save 10%Whiskey infused coffee beans! Our On The Rocks Coffee takes a single origin bean and a single malt oak barrel aged whiskey and brings them together in perfect harmony.
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House Blend Speciality Coffee
£6.00 – £25.00 — or subscribe and save 10%A beautiful bespoke blend consisting of the very best of South American single origin coffee beans. Rich and sweet, with nutty notes. A proven favourite!
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Honduran Guara Roja Speciality Coffee
£5.90 – £24.30 — or subscribe and save 10%Honduran Guara Roja is a red honey processed coffee. A delicious mix of sweet & bright acidity with a juicy flavor that stands out with a complex aftertaste.Guara Roja is a red honey process Speciality co
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Peruvian Lima Coffee
£6.90 – £28.70 — or subscribe and save 10%This beautiful Fair Trade and Organic Peruvian coffee is brought to us by Rony Lavan of award winning Lima coffees. A clean, sweet milk chocolate coffee with toffee and lemon flavours. Recommended!
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Indonesian Old Brown Java Coffee
£6.40 – £26.70 — or subscribe and save 10%A red honey processed coffee that comes with a kick. A delicious combination of sweetness balanced acidity, and dark chocolate notes with hints of almond.
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Brazilian Santos Coffee
£5.30 – £21.50 — or subscribe and save 10%A very popular coffee with a superb nutty flavour profile. Smooth and versatile, these beans have been roasted to bring out their sweetness in the cup.
What is the Best Coffee for Cafetiere?
The cafetiere’s total immersion process makes it harder to over-extract your coffee. This simple saturation method makes the cafetiere an ideal brewing method for beginners as there is not much that can go wrong and it generally provides a rich, robust full-bodied cup of coffee. Coffees from South, and Central America, as well as Indonesia, can often work well with cafetiere as these countries often provide coffee beans that have nutty and chocolate tones that work well with the French Press method.
As well as the flavour profile, there are types of roast that best suits the cafetiere brewing method. While you can brew any coffee with a cafetiere, fuller-bodied, richer coffees, or medium and dark roasted coffee beans are in broad terms appropriate for brewing with the cafetiere. A dash of milk works well with the earthy, chocolatey flavour it tends to bring out of the profiles.
The cafetiere is renowned for delivering a full-bodied coffee, our coffee experts here at Iron and Fire recommend looking for nutty and rich flavours such as hazelnuts, almonds and chocolate.
The Ideal Grind for Cafetiere Coffee
The best grind size for your French Press machine is a coarse grind. This is a similar size to kosher or sea salt. Grind size is not as important for your french press as with other methods, however the advantage of going courses means you are less likely to get coffee solids in your drink. Don’t have your own coffee grinder? We stock a range of high-quality coffee grinders ensuring that you have the perfect coffee grind!
History of the French Press
Unsurprisingly it was a Frenchman that created the very first French press. It was created by necessity when he noticed that he had not added coffee to his already boiling water. He needed something that would press down the coffee into the water or it would float at the top and he wouldn’t enjoy his coffee. He found a passing merchant, a stick, and a piece of metal which then allowed him to plunge. The French press has come a long way from that and has become one of the most popular home coffee brewing methods which produce a rich cup of coffee.

