4 French Press Coffee Recipes That Will Spice Up Your Morning Routine

To understand the appeal that homemade coffee has on such a significant part of the population, one first must understand why coffee is the world’s most widely traded tropical agricultural commodity. So wide is the worldwide demand and cultural popularity of coffee that it is easy to say, and to back up with facts, that it should head the list of foods that changed the world. So long before people started using their coffee presser stainless steel to concoct their favorite coffee brews and blends, the coffee bean had traversed the globe changing entire nations and economies.

Coffee was first found around the horn of Africa in the southwestern Ethiopian province of Kaffa. The most told story of coffee’s origin involves a goat herder, Kaldi, and his goats. In around 700 AD. he noticed his goats acting strange after eating some red berries. He deduced that this fruit was the cause of this odd behavior. As the story continues, it is said that Kaldi took these strange fruits to a nearby monk who threw the now dried seeds into a fire which resulted in first roasted coffee and produced the aroma that made this fruit into a household staple centuries after. Further experimentation saw the seeds – who would eventually be known as beans – be grounded and boiled to produce what we know today as coffee. From the mountains of Kaffa, coffee fruit was taken across the Red Sea to Mocha, also known as al-Mukha, the great Arab port in the country of Yemen. The beverage then started to become a little too popular and became known in Persia, Egypt, Syria and Turkey before spreading both east and west: East into India and Indonesia and West into Italy and onto the rest of Europe. 

It wasn’t until the 18th century when coffee made its way into the western hemisphere. A captain of the French navy, through some ingenuity and plain old luck, transported some clippings off of a coffee tree to Martinique from Paris. From those clippings, within 3 years coffee plantations spread throughout Martinique, St. Dominique – a part of the western side of the island Hispaniola nowadays Haiti and Dominican Republic – and Guadalupe. These would be the plants that would eventually populate the rest of the Caribbean and Central and South America. In 1730, the English Governor of Jamaica, Sir Nicholas Lawes brought coffee plants to his island. Within a short time, coffee was growing deep into the Blue Mountains, an exceptional growing area for coffee. This coffee became one of the most expensive in the world. Present day, Brazil grows more coffee than any other one in the world while the United States of America is the world’s largest coffee consumer with a whopping excess of $40 billion a year spent on trying to get the perfect personalized roast. So in true do it yourself fashion here are a few recipes someone with a French press could try at home instead of paying over the odds for a cup of coffee.

French Press Coffee Recipes 

1. French Press Espresso – Measure the coffee beans and grind them at a fine grind-size. Pour the finely ground coffee beans into the press, add hot water and stir for a few seconds before pouring the rest of the water. Let the coffee brew for a few minutes, and then press down gently on the plunger. Lift the plunger a little and then press it down again to help filter the fine grounds. Pour the espresso shot into a server or cup and enjoy.
2. French Press Iced Coffee – Grind 75 grams coffee beans to a medium grind using a coffee grinder. That’s about 1 cup. Heat 2 cups of water to hot but not boiling  using an electric kettle. Or, bring it to a boil on the stovetop and then let it sit for 1 minute to decrease in temperature. Add the coffee grounds to the bottom of the pot. Add hot water to the height of the coffee and stir with a spoon. Set a timer and wait for 1 minute. Fill the French press to the top and stir again. Set a timer and wait for 4 minutes. Place the lid on the French press and slowly press the plunger all the way down. Fill two tall glasses with ice. Pour the hot coffee over the ice. Add additional ice if necessary. 
3. Foamed French Press Milky Coffee – Warm the milk separately using a microwave or the stove. Pour the warmed milk into the French press with the brewed coffee. Then pump the handle repeatedly until the milk starts to froth. Then pour it into a cup.
4. French Press Caffe Latte – Boil water in a kettle and grind the fresh coffee beans at a coarse setting. Then place the coffee grounds in the French press and add hot water over the coffee grounds. Plunge using the French press filter and pour the coffee into a server. Then add organic whole milk and stir with a spoon to enjoy some delicious coffee.