Best Coffee For Cafetiere

The best coffee for a cafetiere is a freshly roasted medium or medium-dark Arabica, ground coarse. That roast range stays sweet and full-bodied in a metal-mesh brewer. West Berkshire Roastery's Signature Gold suits most people, Black Gold suits anyone who wants a bolder cup, and Simmer Down Decaf covers decaf.

A cafetiere is about the easiest way there is to brew coffee at home, and it hides nothing. There's no paper filter to smooth anything over, so whatever the coffee is doing, you taste it. That's why the best coffee for cafetiere brewing isn't always the bag you'd pick for an espresso machine or a filter dripper. The rest of this guide is about what we'd buy, and why.

Best coffee for cafetiere: our picks by cup style

We're a speciality coffee roaster, so we'll start with our own shelf. Every coffee below is roasted to order in West Berkshire and has a Cafetière Grind option, so it arrives ready for your pot. The tasting notes and strength scores come from the product pages, and prices are for 500g.

Signature Gold: the all-rounder

Signature Gold is a medium roast from Peru with a medium to full body and a soft natural sweetness. It works black and it works with milk, which is why it's our default recommendation. We buy the whole crop each harvest, so it isn't something you'll find in the shops. If I could keep only one bag in the cupboard for cafetiere brewing, this would be it.

Black Gold: bold and full-bodied

Our Italian espresso roast, Black Gold, is medium to dark and won two stars at the Great Taste awards. The body is full and creamy, the flavour runs to caramel and cookie, and the acidity is soft. It was made with espresso in mind, but those same traits suit a cafetiere, and it's our best coffee for a strong cup.

Chocolate Brownie Blend: sweet and low in acidity

Grown at 1,250 metres on the Bom Jesus farm in Alta Mogiana, Brazil, and processed naturally, Chocolate Brownie Blend has a medium body, low acidity and a sweet flavour that lingers. It's the easy-going pick, and a good first bag if sharper coffees aren't for you.

White Gold: lighter and brighter

The gentlest coffee here is White Gold, a medium to light roast from Sítio da Torre in Sul de Minas, Brazil. Expect a soft apple lift on top of the sugary flavours. It's usually brewed as filter coffee, but a cafetiere gives it a rounder body than a paper filter would, so it's worth a go if you like your coffee on the lighter side.

Simmer Down Decaf

Simmer Down Decaf is a medium roast from Cajamarca in Peru, decaffeinated with the Swiss Water Process and sold as organic and Fairtrade. Brew it exactly as you would any other coffee in your pot. More decaf options are in our decaf coffee beans collection.

Can't decide? The Ultimate Taster Pack has Signature Gold, Black Gold and White Gold in 250g bags, and you can choose the cafetiere grind there too.

Why a cafetiere is fussy about coffee

In a cafetiere the grounds sit in hot water for around four minutes, then a metal mesh presses them to the bottom of the pot. This is immersion brewing. Everything extracts into the same water for the whole time, and unlike paper, the mesh lets oils and some fine particles through into the cup. You get more body and more texture than you would from filter coffee, and a harsh or stale coffee has nowhere to hide. Cafetiere brewing rewards fresh speciality coffee and punishes tired beans.

In the UK we call the pot a cafetière. Elsewhere it's a French press, and it's the same brewer, so this advice covers French press brewing and French press coffee alike.

It's a low-effort brewing method, too, and the one we'd recommend to anyone starting out. Instant coffee and coffee pods are quicker, and coffee machines or espresso machines make a different drink altogether, but a cafetiere gives you freshly brewed coffee with nothing more than a kettle.

Which roast level suits a cafetiere?

The best coffee for a cafetiere sits between medium and medium-dark. A medium roast keeps the sweetness and flavour of the bean while giving the body that immersion brewing rewards. A medium dark roast leans towards chocolate, caramel and nut with less acidity, which is why bold, rounded coffees like Black Gold do well in the pot.

A dark roast can taste heavy or smoky if you leave it to steep too long, and an espresso roast pushed that far can turn bitter in the pot. A light roast has more acidity and fruit flavour, which is lovely as filter coffee, but in a cafetiere it can come across thin or sour if the water isn't hot enough. Neither is wrong. They just leave you less room for error.

On our own range, Signature Gold sits at medium, Black Gold at medium to dark and White Gold at medium to light, so you can move along the scale one bag at a time and find the roast level you like. If you're unsure where to begin, the first two are the safest bets.

Natural or washed: how processing changes the cup

Processing is how the coffee fruit is removed from the seed after picking. In a washed coffee the fruit comes off before the bean is dried, and the flavour tends to be cleaner and more defined. In a natural coffee the beans dry inside the fruit, and the flavour tends to be sweeter and rounder, sometimes fruitier.

Three of our coffees show the difference. Chocolate Brownie Blend and White Gold are both Brazilian naturals, and both are described as sweet, with low to medium acidity. Black Gold draws on a washed Red Bourbon from Finca Santa Elena in El Salvador, and its flavour profile is caramel and nut with a clean-tasting finish.

For a cafetiere the practical rule is simple. If you like a soft, sweet cup, start with a natural. If you like a cleaner finish, start with a washed coffee. That's a rule of thumb rather than a law, and a good washed coffee can be plenty sweet. Processing also changes how long a bag needs to settle after roasting, which brings us to freshness.

How fresh should cafetiere coffee be?

Fresh coffee gives off carbon dioxide for days after roasting, so a bag that's only a day or two old can brew unevenly. After a few weeks the aromas and flavour fade and the cup goes flat. The good cup is somewhere in between, and a cafetiere makes both ends easy to taste.

Our guide to how long to rest coffee after roasting gives windows by roast level. For a medium roast like Signature Gold, about 5 to 8 days off roast is the filter-brewing figure (7 to 10 days if you're making espresso), and we use the filter figure as the guide for a cafetiere. Natural process coffees such as White Gold and Chocolate Brownie Blend need 3 to 5 days longer. Simmer Down Decaf is ready sooner, at around 4 to 6 days.

After that, sealed coffee is usually at its best between 1 and 4 weeks off roast and still enjoyable out to 6 to 8 weeks. Pre ground coffee settles faster, so shorten the wait by a day or two, and ground coffee goes stale sooner than whole beans. We roast to order and ship the same week, so a bag usually reaches you 2 to 5 days after roasting. Whoever you buy from, look for a roast date.

What grind is best for a cafetiere?

Coarse. Think coarse sea salt rather than table salt. The mesh can't hold back fine particles, so coffee ground too fine slips into the cup as sludge and over-extracts, which is where the bitterness comes from. It also makes the plunger hard to press, and a lot of resistance usually means the grind is too fine or there's too much coffee in the pot. Even the best coffee for cafetiere brewing will taste wrong at the wrong grind.

If you have a coffee grinder at home, a burr grinder on a coarse setting gives the most even result, and whole beans stay fresher until you need them. Our post on whole bean versus ground coffee covers the trade-off. If you'd rather not grind, choose the Cafetière Grind option at checkout, because the grind matters more in this brewing method than in most. I'd take properly ground coffee from us over beans mangled in a cheap blade grinder every time.

Espresso grind is far too fine for a cafetiere, and filter grind is finer than ideal. Cold brew in a cafetiere wants a coarse grind too, and our cold brew concentrate guide has the ratios.

How much coffee to use in a cafetiere

Our starting point is 15g of coffee for every 250ml of water, a ratio of about 1 to 16.7. Cafetieres are sold by the cup, but a cup isn't a fixed amount. A 3 cup pot is usually 350ml and an 8 cup pot is usually 1 litre, so go by the millilitres marked on the jug.

The method takes a few minutes:

1. Weigh the coffee and grind it coarse if you're starting with whole beans.
2. Boil the kettle and leave it for a minute, so the water is between 91 and 94 degrees.
3. Add the coffee to the pot, then pour in the water slowly until all the grounds are covered.
4. Leave it for about four minutes. Go closer to three for a lighter cup or five for a stronger one.
5. Press the plunger down slowly, then pour it all out straight away. Coffee left sitting on the grounds keeps extracting and turns bitter.

At that dose a 500g bag makes about 33 mugs, so a bag at £16.95 works out at roughly 51p a mug. Our brew guide covers the other methods, and our post on how much coffee to use in a cafetiere goes further on strength.

Does water matter?

Coffee is mostly water, so yes. Even the best coffee can't rescue bad water. If your tap water tastes off or leaves limescale in the kettle, filtering it first can make the flavour sweeter and protects your equipment from scale. Our guide to the best water for brewing coffee explains what to look for.

Frequently Asked Questions

What grind of coffee is best for a cafetiere?

Coarse, roughly the texture of coarse sea salt. A cafetiere's metal mesh cannot hold back fine grounds, so a finer grind slips into the cup as sludge and over-extracts, which tastes bitter. If you buy ground coffee, choose the Cafetière Grind option at checkout. If you grind at home, use a burr grinder on a coarse setting.

Can any ground coffee go in a cafetiere?

You can, but results vary. Espresso grind is too fine for the mesh, clogs the plunger and muddies the cup. Filter grind is also finer than ideal and can taste bitter. Coffee sold as cafetiere or French press grind is the safest choice, because the particle size suits the mesh filter and the long steep.

What is the best coffee to use in a cafetiere?

A freshly roasted medium or medium-dark Arabica is the most reliable choice, with enough body to suit a long immersion brew. Signature Gold is our medium roast with chocolate and caramel notes. For a bolder cup, Black Gold is medium-dark. Check the roast date before you buy, whoever roasted it.

Is a cafetiere the same as a French press?

Yes. Cafetière is the usual UK name for a French press coffee maker, a full-immersion brewer where ground coffee steeps in hot water before a mesh plunger presses the grounds to the bottom. Some people also call it a coffee plunger. The same advice applies to all three names.

Can you make decaf in a cafetiere?

Yes. A cafetiere gives a rounded, full-bodied cup, which suits decaf well. Choose a freshly roasted Swiss Water Process decaf, ground coarse, and brew it exactly like regular coffee. Simmer Down Decaf is our Swiss Water Process Peru, with notes of vanilla fudge and caramelised biscuit.