(Too late, expired) $40 Ceramic French press coffee pot for $4 on Amazon

[Huskee]

Well I used mine twice this morning. Very quality unit, very easy to use (minus the inherent extra steps of using one in general).

I used my regular storebought ground coffee, knowing I'd risk some grounds being in the cup....no grounds! The mesh filter on the plunger is small enough to filter preground grounds, great to know! The coffee didn't taste as strong as I thought it would. I used SeriousEats.com's French Press article (except of course not using coarse-ground beans). I made another pot an added some more grounds this time, and still it wasn't as strong as I expected. Also my brewing water was more like 187, a little shy of the '10-15 deg lower than boil' recommendation for dark roast. Was this enough to give me the 'not as strong' sensation? Doubtful. More playing around in my future.

As the article points out, I did have "fines" leftover in the cup. This is the same stuff you'd see in the bottom of a cup of hot cocoa, just a dark bit in the bottom. It was definitely NOT grounds.

Another valid use of the ThermaPen, or actually my $4 Palermo version, is I found out that my ideal sipping temp is 130F- hot but not burn your tongue hot. And that brewing it for the 8 minutes made it lose about 57 degrees, even with my ceramic carafe preheated. I suppose that's a good bit of useless info.

[Breadhead]

Huskee ...

I've used another French press for about a year and have my process down pretty fine. I use a quart of hot tap water and microwave it until it boils. I also filled the new ceramic French press with hot tap water to preheat the ceramic body while the other water is in the microwave.

I do grind my own beams though. To get my coffee stronger I grind them finer than what you buy in the can. That fine grind will give you more mud at the bottom of your cup. I drink my coffee black and don't add anything to it, I don't stir it after pouring it into the cup. That allows the mud to settle to the bottom fairly quickly. If you add creme and sugar and then stir it the mud needs time to settle at the bottom.

The term mud came from back in the day of cowboy coffee. A cup of coffee was referred to as a cup of mud by some back in those days.

Keep fiddling with the grind. The more course the grind the lighter your coffee will be.