Ditching the regular old coffee pot for a french press can be a life changing experience. No, I’m not being dramatic.
It’s a symbolic gesture that shows you’re moving on from “regular” and choosing “incredible”. It’s a practical way to take control of something that’s important to you and make it yours.
The french press brews coffee that drip coffee pots can only dream of. It provides a sensorial experience that’s richer and more satisfying than drip pots in every way.
We spend enough time and money on things that don’t really make us happier or better people. Your coffee shouldn’t be one of them. Great coffee energizes, focuses, and satisfies. If you want your coffee to enable you to thrive, take control of it.
It’s time to stop settling for mediocre coffee from a mediocre brewer. It’s time to take control and reap the rewards with a french press.
Read: The Ultimate Guide To French Press Coffee
French Presses Are Buy-It-For-Life Items
Unfortunately, drip coffee pots are usually poorly made. The wires break down, the plastic parts wear and tear. They are built to break, and most people go through several coffee pots per decade. When it comes to most of these brewers, it’s all about sales.
A carafe, a frame, a lid, and a filter. That’s a french press. It’s simple, it’s lasting.
Most people use their french press for life. The only thing that can break is the glass carafe, which can easily be replaced.
Try fixing a shorting wire or a broken spring in a drip coffee pot - they’re not made to be fixed. They’re made to be thrown away and replaced. But french presses don’t suffer from this underlying motivation. They are buy-it-for-life items.
Read: 5 Things That Ruin Your Coffee
French Press Coffee Tastes So Much Better
With the exception of a few high dollar brewers and commercial machines, drip coffee pots are plagued by a variety of design errors that significantly impact your coffee’s flavor and cause it to plateau at a low level.
Most don’t bring the water to ideal temperatures for brewing (195-205 degrees F), even though the ideal temps are common knowledge. There’s no excuse for that. Most use a shower head that cannot evenly distribute the water over the coffee grounds. This is also a notorious problem that coffee pot manufacturers seem to not care about.
Simply put, most drip coffee pots are not made to brew incredible coffee. They’re made to conveniently brew coffee that’s “good enough” for the sake of sales. Compared to french press coffee, drip coffee from home coffee pots is often thin, monotone, and on the boring side.
French presses don’t suffer from these design and engineering flaws because they are manual brewers. You boil the water on the stove yourself, so you have complete (and painless) control over the temperature. You also time the brew yourself and have control over the brewing length.
Read: 5 Ways To Up Your Coffee Game
With a french press, you have complete control over the things that drip coffee pots fail to do correctly - and with hardly any more effort or technique (how hard is it to put a pot on the stove and start a timer with your phone?).
By being able to easily control these variables, you can brew coffee that’s rich, balanced, and satisfying. The stainless steel filter that french presses use allows some of the natural oils and micro grounds to slide through to your cup, producing coffee that’s full-flavored and full-bodied.
Brewing blow-your-mind-coffee with a french press is easy.
Brewing blog-your-mind-coffee with a drip pot is usually impossible.
Read: What Makes Specialty Coffee So Special?
French Press Brewing Is A Rewarding Experience
When was the last time you felt a sense of personal satisfaction from your drip coffee pot? I’m guessing you never have, but with a french press, it’s a daily experience.
Firstly, brewing with a french press is a visual experience that drip pots cannot rival. Seeing the water and coffee interact (especially the bloom) reminds you that coffee is complex and beautiful, which elevates the experience from its beginning.
Secondly, the aromas that rise from fresh coffee are rich and available like never before. Sure, drip pots create aromas, but they don’t let them get to your nose like a french press does.
Thirdly, manual brewing generates gratitude, focus, and satisfaction. The mental benefits of brewing coffee by hand are shocking. Though it takes a hint of effort and care, the joy of creating something (instead of letting a machine do it for you) gets the day started on the right foot by providing a moment for focus, calm, and a job well done.
Read: How Manual Coffee Brewing Can Change Your Life
French press coffee brewing is about more than the coffee. Every step of the journey, from grinding the coffee to cleaning the press, is part of the rich experience. Trust me, you’ll never want to go back to drip pots once you’ve felt the pride of crafting your coffee by hand.
Once you know the satisfaction of doing something you care about with intention and focus - even though it’s just a small thing - you’ll start approaching other areas of life in the same way. Before long, you’ll be finding gratitude and peace in other everyday tasks and moments. That’s the way to live.
