What you’ll need:

Plunger, a grinder, a spoon, a timer, coffee and cups

Step 1: Grind the Coffee

You want to grind the coffee coarse so that you can go for a slower and more even extraction.

We recommend that you use a burr (rather than a blade) grinder where possible. Blades chop rather than grind and that means funky sized coffee that changes consistency from pot to pot. You don’t want that now, do you?

Step 2: Add coffee to the pot

You’ll need one tablespoon (7 grams) of coffee for every 120ml of water. Feel free to adjust this amount based on your own personal tastes. Make sure the pot is clean and dry.

Step 3: Add water

Bring the water just to a boil and pour it aggressively into the pot so that it saturates the grounds. You want to saturate all the grounds evenly so move around as you pour. Don’t fill the pot entirely.

A lot of fresh coffees will expand in a sort of foam at the top of the liquid once you add water. This is known as bloom and is the result of the off-gassing of CO2 from the coffee. Add too much water and you’re going to have yourself a nice mess to clean up. You’ve been warned…

Step 4: Start the timer

4 minutes is all we’re talking about here. Using a timer guarantees high quality coffee. It doesn’t get much easier than that.

Step 5: Stir the pot

After 1 minute, you should stir the pot. This keeps things even and gives the optimal extraction of coffee. If you need to add water to top off the pot, make sure it is right below boiling.

Step 6: Put the top on

All you have to do is line up the spout with the opening in the lid (edit: this is definitely easier than starting a timer).

Step 7: Press the pot

At exactly 4 minutes, you should (slowly) push the press into the pot to force all grounds to the bottom. You might have to press and then release and repeat to do this so don’t go too crazy. Think more Michael Cera than Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Step 8: Pour the coffee

You need to do this as soon as you’ve pressed the pot. Don’t leave the coffee in the Press as it gets nasty quickly. If you want to avoid any stray grounds and sediment, you can pour the coffee through a mesh basket filter.