Best French Press

Our pick

Bodum Chambord

Bodum Chambord

The best French press

This simple but elegant French press makes coffee just as grit-free as brews from competitors that cost significantly more.

The Bodum Chambord produced a clear-flavored and consistent cup of coffee that our tasters liked just as much as coffee brewed in most of the other presses we tested, most of which cost more. Its simple glass beaker, steel filtering screens, and elegant steel frame appear refined rather than cheap, and its filter pushes down with more ease than other presses’ halting, skittish plungers.

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Our pick

Bodum Brazil

Same guts, plastic frame

The Brazil contains the same filtering mechanism as the Chambord, just in a cheaper plastic frame.

If you want the same taste that the Chambord offers for almost half the price, we recommend the Bodum Brazil. It has the exact same filter and glass beaker as the Chambord, but Bodum outfits this model in a matte black plastic frame that looks less ornate. The Brazil works just as well, and you can’t beat the price.

Upgrade pick

Espro Press P3

No grit, great flavor

The Espro P3’s innovative filter brewed the brightest and most grit-free coffee in our tests, but it’s pricey for a press.

If you’re willing to pay more for a press that preserves as much of your beans’ brightness and flavor as possible, we recommend the Espro Press P3. The clear front-runner among our tasting panel, this Espro model offers an unusual bucket-shaped double filter that’s much finer than most and will keep your coffee almost as grit-free as pour-over. But at around twice the price of the Chambord at this writing, the Espro P3 is a definite splurge, so we recommend it only for people who are very particular about grit in their coffee.

Also great

Espro Press P7

Espro Press P7

An elegant stainless steel press

This press offers the same superior filtration as our upgrade pick in a sleek steel body. But it costs twice as much as its glass twin.

We recommend the expensive Espro Press P7 as a beautiful gift or a durable choice for anyone who doesn’t want to worry about their glass beaker breaking. This near-unbreakable stainless steel press contains the same ultrafine filter as the P3, and its double, vacuum-insulated walls will keep coffee hot for up to an hour (though we don’t recommend leaving the brew in that long).

Everything we recommend

Our pick

Bodum Chambord

Bodum Chambord

The best French press

This simple but elegant French press makes coffee just as grit-free as brews from competitors that cost significantly more.

Bodum Brazil

Same guts, plastic frame

The Brazil contains the same filtering mechanism as the Chambord, just in a cheaper plastic frame.

Espro Press P3

No grit, great flavor

The Espro P3’s innovative filter brewed the brightest and most grit-free coffee in our tests, but it’s pricey for a press

Espro Press P7

An elegant stainless steel press

This press offers the same superior filtration as our upgrade pick in a sleek steel body. But it costs twice as much as its glass twin.

I’ve used (and broken) many French presses since my first year of college, and I still use one almost every day. For guidance, I spoke with Scott Carey, owner, and roaster at Sump Coffee, a coffee shop in St. Louis. At Sump, Carey experiments with a variety of brewing methods. He even has a series of instructional videos on YouTube where he explains how each process works, along with the occasional mustache twirl. I also spoke to Matt Banbury, a regional salesperson at Counter Culture, who has used a slew of French presses at his work.

When it comes to brewing a simple cup of coffee fast, nothing beats a French press. The whole process takes just over four minutes, so it’s a great choice for anyone looking to save some time in their morning routine. A French press is also compact, making it a good option for people without a great deal of counter space.

Pressed coffee is more full-bodied and textured than other brews, but also more muddy, because the French press’s mesh screen is more porous than a paper filter. Some people love the robust, oily flavor of French press coffee, while others dislike how the brew loses the highlights and delicacies of fancy coffee beans. It’s really a matter of taste.

Scott Carey of Sump Coffee told us he recommended a French press for anyone who loved dark-roast coffee. While lighter roasts shine in their clarified fruity tasting notes, dark roasts have less palate complexity and are perfect candidates for a French press, according to Carey. “When you muddle the cup and add body, you get that great mouthfeel and you can get a little more sweetness,” he said, adding that it produced a brew that had “more bass than treble.”

But even if you do enjoy light-roast coffee, the French press is a brewing method that’s easy to learn and master. As Carey put it: “Sometimes the best-brewed cup of coffee is the one you’re able to execute well.”

Coffee being poured from a black Espro french press.

A French press, also known as a press pot or plunger pot, is a method of manually brewing a small batch of coffee. At its core, all you need is a French press, ground coffee, and hot water. This brewing method offers much more simplicity and speed than brewing methods like pour-over and coffee machines.

Sump Coffee’s Scott Carey told us it’s easy to figure out a decent ratio of grounds to water by eyeballing the amounts you use in one brew and then adjusting those levels if you find the coffee to be too weak or too astringent. Once you discover a ratio you like, take note of approximately how many scoops of grounds you used and how high you filled the press so you can replicate that combo in future brews.

But if you want to be a little more precise, here’s the ideal brewing method and amount of ingredients, according to Carey. First, consider your ratio of coffee to water. If you’re brewing a lighter roast, a ratio of 1-to-14 or 1-to-15 is ideal. In practical terms, this ratio would require 63 grams of grounds to make a full 32-ounce pot. With fuller-bodied darker roasts, you’ll get more flavor extraction, so a ratio of 1-to-16 or 1-to-17, or 58 grams for a 32-ounce pot, would suffice. French presses also require a much coarser grind than most brewing methods, so use the appropriate setting on your grinder or look for bags of preground coffee that advertise a less fine blend.

When you have your grounds in the pot, pour in water that’s around 200 degrees Fahrenheit. If you don’t have a temperature-specific water kettle, wait for 30 seconds after your water has finished boiling, then go ahead and pour. Put the plunger in to cover the liquid, but don’t press down all the way.

Set a timer for four minutes. One minute in, pull out the plunger, and using a spoon, gently break up the crust of grounds that has accumulated on the top of your coffee. Put the lid back on and wait until the remainder of the four minutes is up. Then plunge all the way down slowly to avoid agitating the grounds. Pour your coffee into mugs or a carafe right away to stop the brewing—coffee that remains in the press will continue extracting and turn bitter and sour. For more guidance, watch Carey’s French press how-to video, which we consulted before brewing batches for our tasting panel.

High-quality, fresh-roasted beans will give you better coffee no matter what brewing method you use. We recommend grinding your own beans before each use to produce the best possible cup of coffee from your French press.

Four black and silver french presses sitting on a wooden countertop.
Our four picks (from left): Espro P3, Bodum Chambord, Bodum Brazil, and Espro P7.

A good French press has a plunger with a tight seal, meaning the plunger fits snugly inside the walls of the press to ensure that stray grounds don’t escape into your coffee. The plunger should also have a steel filter with a mesh screen to trap grounds at the bottom of the pot. The screen should be sturdy enough not to warp over time, but it’s still a huge plus if you can purchase replacement filters online.

Most French presses come in multiple sizes, but we recommend buying a 32-ounce press, especially if you want to make coffee for multiple people. If you choose to go smaller, pay attention to how many ounces, not “cups,” the press can hold. For example, the Bodum Chambord three-cup model handles just 12 ounces, because the company defines a cup of coffee as 4 ounces. For reference, a tall cup of coffee at Starbucks is 8 ounces.

The press should also be sturdy enough to handle daily plunging and cleaning with ease. Presses with a glass beaker should have an exterior that will cushion and protect it from bumps and drops. But even the nicest glass beaker may crack after years of handling, so if you want a French press to grow old with you, a stainless steel model is a great choice. And any good press should have replacement parts, such as beakers and filters, available to purchase online.

Many stainless steel French presses advertise a heat-retaining double-wall construction, but we think this feature isn’t too important because you should pour pressed coffee out of the beaker as soon as you’ve plunged it. Still, the handle of a glass press and the body of any steel press should feel cool to the touch so you don’t burn yourself while pouring a cup. And glass presses should have a handle that’s far enough from the glass beaker to keep you from burning your knuckles.

Most glass French presses are made of borosilicate, a type of glass made more resistant to thermal shock by the addition of boric oxide. Thermal shock is what causes glass to break when it undergoes sharp changes in temperature. So a borosilicate beaker is important if you want your French press to remain in one piece even when you fill it with boiling water.

With those criteria in mind, we sorted through dozens of presses—from simple glass beakers to elegant and fragile Japanese designs—on the websites for Sur La Table and Williams Sonoma. We also looked through best-selling presses on Amazon, got recommendations from Scott Carey of Sump Coffee and Matt Banbury of Counter Culture, and took into consideration research from our guide to the best coffee maker for camping before settling on six finalists to test.

To test the presses, we first ran them all through the dishwasher to confirm that they wouldn’t break in a machine wash. We also filled each beaker to the brim with boiling water to verify that the glass was indeed heatproof and wouldn’t shatter in use. To see how the presses would handle a common, ready-bought grind that’s finer than the coarse one recommended for a French press, we brewed three batches of Dunkin’ Donuts preground coffee and noted how much of the grounds remained. Between batches, we disassembled and reassembled the various stainless steel screens and plates that made up the presses’ filters in order to see how easy it was to clean them.

We also held a blind-tasting panel with four coffee fiends among Wirecutter’s staff to assess how bright or muddled the flavors were from each press, as well as how much grit lingered in the bottom of each cup. For the panel, we upgraded to a more luxurious bean—Café Grumpy’s Mahiga, a single-origin roast from Nyeri, Kenya—which we ground in one of our former favorite burr grinders, the Baratza Virtuoso. For each batch, we used 25 grams of coffee to 350 milliliters of water, steeping for four minutes sharp. Each panelist took notes on how clarified, acidic, and muddy each brew tasted, as well as how much of the grounds remained in their cup. We concluded our test with a roundtable discussion of what we liked and didn’t like about each press.

The Bodum Chambord french press sitting next to coffee making tools on a wooden countertop.

Our pick

Bodum Chambord

The best French press

This simple but elegant French press makes coffee just as grit-free as brews from competitors that cost significantly more.

The classic Bodum Chambord makes a balanced cup of coffee, retaining most of the tasting notes of the coffee and little of the grit of the grounds. Designed in the 1950s, the Chambord looks like the quintessential French press, and its steel frame is more durable than the Bodum Brazil’s plastic body. The Chambord didn’t make the brightest coffee of the bunch, but the flavors of its brew held their own against those of presses three times its price.

The Chambord’s polished, symmetrical steel design looks more upscale than most other presses we tested. The press has tiny feet that lift the hot glass beaker a half-inch off your counter and keep it from breaking if you put the press down too hard. Plus, the gleaming steel frame looks nice in any kitchen. The Chambord’s metal body also felt sturdier than the Brazil’s plastic frame and will scratch less easily over time.

More important, the Chambord makes good coffee. Our tasters noted that its brew was not too muddy and highlighted many of the coffee’s tasting notes. We also saw few leftover grounds in the bottom of testers’ cups, thanks to a dual filtration system consisting of a fine mesh filter and a perforated steel plate.

The Chambord’s heat-resistant borosilicate glass beaker can withstand boiling water. At the same time, its plastic handle feels cool to the touch and safe for pouring. And its plunger moves through the beaker in a smooth motion without stops, unlike with some of the more expensive stainless steel options we tested.

Some of our testers preferred glass presses, saying they sometimes thought they could detect a metallic taste from stainless steel presses, though they admitted that their concern may just be psychological.

Ultimately, if you’re not looking for the most complex brew, the Bodum Chambord will make a grit-free cup with strong flavor and body for a relatively affordable price in an attractive design.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

Glass presses will never be as sturdy as their stainless steel counterparts. Any glass beaker is delicate and will break if you drop it or knock it too hard. In the event that the Chambord does break, you can buy replacement parts, such as beakers and filters, for any Bodum press.

Testers also disliked the plunger’s spherical handle, which was less comfortable to push down than other, flat-capped handles. But the process never takes more than seconds, so we were happy to trade an ergonomic plunge for a press that cost less than most others.

The Chambord costs nearly twice as much as the Brazil, despite their having the same internal plunging and filtering mechanism. We think its steel body looks significantly sturdier and more elegant than the Brazil’s plastic frame, which is why the Chambord is our top pick. But if you don’t care for press aesthetics, the Brazil is a better buy.

The bodum brazil french press sitting with coffee making tools on a wooden counter.

Our pick

Bodum Brazil

Bodum Brazil

Same guts, plastic frame

The Brazil contains the same filtering mechanism as the Chambord, just in a cheaper plastic frame.

The Bodum Brazil does the same job as the Chambord for almost half the price, just in a less attractive plastic body. Otherwise, it has the exact same beaker, internal plunger, and filtering screens as our top pick, the Chambord. In our testing, this press produced the same brew as the Chambord—a balanced cup of coffee with few stray grounds—but for an unbeatable price.

If not elegant, the Brazil’s simple design is inoffensive, belying the fact that its shell is plastic. Some testers even preferred the look of the no-frills Brazil to the fussier-looking Chambord. The Brazil’s triangular handle puts a welcome amount of space between your fingers and the hot glass of the beaker. And if you dislike the handle’s modern look, an older version of the Brazil comes in a more traditional design with a symmetrical handle, though this shape will bring your knuckles closer to the hot glass.

A close up of a person holding the Brazil glass beaker.
The Brazil’s asymmetrical handle keeps fingers far away from the hot glass beaker. Photo: Michael Hession

The Brazil’s lid has a less-than-snug fit on the top of the beaker and can wiggle if you jostle it, but it still traps heat in the pot long enough for you to brew and pour. Freeing the beaker from its snug-fitting plastic shell to clean in between the two is also more difficult, requiring more wiggling than the Chambord’s shell. But you won’t need to clean the inside of the plastic too often.

The top of the Brazil’s handle extends into the beaker, so pushing the filter down is a bit tricky. You first have to angle the plunger so that the filter fits beneath the handle. Then you can straighten out the whole plunger and press down. It’s a minor irritation that doesn’t make using the press any more difficult but does add an extra few seconds to the process.

The glass-bodied Brazil is just as prone to breaking as the Chambord, but the Brazil is so affordable that buying a whole new press may be cheaper. And although the Brazil’s plastic frame may scratch more easily than a steel frame might, that probably won’t affect the function of the press.

The Espro press p3 french press next to coffee making tools on a wooden countertop.

Upgrade pick

Espro Press P3

Espro Press P3

No grit, great flavor

The Espro P3’s innovative filter brewed the brightest and most grit-free coffee in our tests, but it’s pricey for a press.

If you want the brightest, most delicious coffee you can make with a plunger, the Espro Press P3 is a great pick. Its clarified brew unanimously won over our tasting panel, garnering exclamation points in a sea of question marks. In the words of one tester, this Espro model’s coffee boasted “more acid, more flavor, more twang.”

The Espro P3’s two bucket-shaped micro-filters make every other plunger’s fine mesh look like Swiss cheese. According to Espro, the shimmery, gauze-like mesh on its filters is nine to 12 times finer than typical French press filters. The two filters lock into each other so they stay together while plunging, but you can easily detach them when you clean the press. The lock imposes an extra step that takes a few tries to get comfortable with, but it’s easy to master. In our testing, the filters kept out even the most slippery of runaway grounds.

Each Espro press also comes with 25 optional paper filters, which the company says can make your French press taste like pour-over. We brewed batches with and without the paper filters, and while the paper-filtered coffee tasted more refined, it still wasn’t as bright and clear as pour-over. If tasting pour-over is your ultimate goal, you’re better off just buying a pour-over setup, which would be cheaper than an Espro. Still, it’s a nice thought.

Once plunged, the Espro P3’s double filter also slows the grounds from brewing by locking the grounds and a small amount of coffee at the bottom of the press. This portion of the brew continues extracting as long as it sits in the beaker, but it’s too thick and sludgy to pass through the filter. Meanwhile, your coffee sits on top of the filters, relatively separate from the grounds. So if you leave your coffee in the beaker for more than four minutes, the Espro P3 won’t spoil your brew as much as a normal press would.

To test this Espro model’s extraction-stopping claim, we brewed coffee in the P3 and poured half of it into a mug and let the other half stand in the press for five hours. In a side-by-side taste test, the coffee we left in the press tasted noticeably more bitter than the coffee we initially poured out, but a bit better than coffee leftover in a regular French press for five hours. Still, this stopper lasts only so long, and we still recommend pouring your coffee into a separate carafe as soon as it’s steeped.

The P3’s glass beaker is considerably thicker and more insulating than every other glass press in our test group, and it will keep your coffee warmer than either of the Bodum models. If your Espro beaker or any of its parts happen to break, you can buy replacements online—a new beaker costs around $25 at this writing. The circumference of the P3’s plunger is rimmed with two rubber rings, which cling to the inside of the beaker to ensure a tight, silent seal. This design helps Espro’s filter plunge as smoothly as Bodum’s while keeping even the finest grounds out of your coffee. The Frieling French Press we tested also boasted a tight seal, but the metal filter made a terrible scraping sound as it plunged inside the canister. The Espro P3 also has a flat-top plunger handle for a comfortable plunge that fits well against your palm.

The P3’s main drawback is its price. It costs about three times as much as Brazil currently, and it makes coffee that tastes good—but not three times as good. We recommend it only if you have a particularly sensitive palate, care about preserving as many tasting notes as possible, and enjoy the texture of French press coffee. But if you just want a quick and easy cup of coffee in the morning, we recommend the Chambord.

The espro press p7 sitting on a wooden countertop with other coffee making tools.

Also great

Espro Press P7

Espro Press P7

An elegant stainless steel press

This press offers the same superior filtration as our upgrade pick in a sleek steel body. But it costs twice as much as its glass twin.

If you want beautiful and bright coffee from a French press you can display on the dining table, the Espro Press P7 is much sleeker than the glass options we tested. It makes the same brew as the Espro Press P3, containing the same ultrafine-mesh double filter that preserves tasting notes and traps grit. Matt Banbury, a regional salesperson at coffee seller Counter Culture, told us the Espro P7 was that company’s French press of choice because its brew was cleaner than that of all other presses the people there have used. And its near-unbreakable steel build means it could be the last press you ever have to buy.

The body of the P7 has insulating vacuum-sealed double walls that will keep your coffee hot longer than a glass press could. After brewing coffee in this Espro model and leaving it alone for two hours, we returned to find pretty warm coffee. As in the P3, in the P7 the signature bucket-shaped filter slows extraction as soon as you plunge. We still recommend pouring your freshly brewed coffee into a separate carafe to stop the beans from extracting further and making your coffee bitter, but if you do happen to leave your plunged coffee in the P7 a little longer than intended, it won’t be a complete disaster.

A close up of the silver lid of the espro p7 french press.
The Espro P7’s durable steel exterior is sleek and beautiful to look at.

Unlike the other stainless steel presses we tested, the Espro P7 plunges smoothly to the bottom of the press without making any noise. Both the Secura and the Frieling had metal filters that made a harsh scraping noise as we moved them against their interior steel walls, whereas the Espro P7’s rubber-rimmed filter made for a lubricated, silent plunge.

At double the cost of the Espro P3, its already-expensive glass counterpart, the Espro P7 is quite a splurge right now, so we recommend it only for the most discriminating drinkers who want a French press for life. After all, a glass press will break if you drop it. This one won’t. And its dignified appearance makes it a beautiful gift.

You may have read somewhere that French press coffee raises your cholesterol or your risk of heart disease. But the exact relationship between unfiltered coffee and cholesterol is complex, and scientists still don’t fully understand it.

Here’s what we do know. Coffee made without a paper filter does contain substances called cafestol and kahweol. These molecules can decrease LDL receptors, which are responsible for siphoning LDL cholesterol out of your body’s circulation. “This decreased number of LDL receptors would be expected to raise your cholesterol,” said Dr. Karol Watson, a cardiologist and co-director of the UCLA Program in Preventive Cardiology.

A 1997 study about unfiltered coffee and cholesterol showed that drinking five cups of pressed coffee a day could raise serum cholesterol by 0.13 to 0.27 mmol/liter. The researchers defined one cup as 150 mL, which is about 5.1 ounces. Five of those cups a day is equivalent to approximately two Starbucks tall coffees.

One researcher we spoke to found those results alarming. According to Rob Martinus van Dam, an epidemiologist at the National University of Singapore, this rise in serum cholesterol is equivalent to a 6 percent increase in risk of coronary heart disease. “Given that heart disease is a complex disease with many contributing factors in the development of heart disease, this is a substantial impact for a single dietary habit,” van Dam said, adding that he would recommend regular French press drinkers who have high cholesterol or are at risk for heart disease switch to another, filtered method of coffee preparation that they enjoy.

While Watson confirmed that the study’s results were valid, she said there was not enough information to make any broad recommendations. “It is impossible to know how drinking French press (or really any unfiltered coffee, including percolated) would affect an individual person’s cholesterol,” she said. Watson added that other “epidemiological studies have identified a relationship between drinking 3-5 cups of coffee per day and improved survival, but these studies didn’t differentiate between different manners of preparation.”

The Bodum Columbia features a stainless steel double wall with silicone, mesh plunger meant to prevent scratching and reduce sediment. According to Bodum, this French press takes about four minutes to brew about 8 cups of coffee or tea. We plan to test it and update this guide accordingly.

The Planetary Design Table Top French Press remains our favorite coffee maker for camping. It brews cleanly and offers better insulation than any other press we tested. But while it travels well to a campsite, it looks unwieldy on a kitchen counter. If you plunge too fast, you’ll end up with splattered droplets of hot coffee on your breakfast. It’s also harder to clean, with a small metal cap that detaches from the end of the filtering pole and can slide into the drain if you’re not careful.

Our tasting panelists all agreed that the stately but expensive Frieling French Press was the most beautiful press we evaluated, and many said they would consider buying it as a gift. But the Espro P7 had a finer filter. And the Frieling model lacked the rubber rings circling the Espro P7’s filter, resulting in a metal-on-metal plunging noise that sounded a little like nails on a chalkboard. This model is stunning to look at, but we don’t think we’d ever get used to that sound.

Enticingly cheap stainless steel presses that resembled the Frieling dominated Amazon’s best-seller list at the time of our research. Of that lot, we chose to test the 1-liter Secura Stainless Steel French Press (SFP-34DS), which often takes the number one spot. Our tasting panel said this Secura model’s brew tasted fine, but the seal on the filter did not feel that tight against the inner walls of the press. Overall, this press looked like a less beautiful and less functional Frieling.

Although the Rite Press was initially intriguing to us, we have concerns about its overall availability following reports that the Kickstarter backers never received their French presses. The Rite Press allegedly makes coffee cleanup easier with a twist-off bottom that allows you to dump the grounds directly into the trash. Some of its features, such as an attached hourglass set for a brewing time of three and a half minutes, seem somewhat helpful. Others, such as a removable thermometer that you can use to measure the temperature of your hot water before adding it to the pot, seem less helpful (it’s easier to just use a variable-temperature electric kettle).

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