The 3 Best French Press Coffee Makers, According to Our Extensive, Caffeinated Testing

Brewing coffee with a French press is highly rewarding and very simple: You pour hot water over coarse grinds, wait a few minutes, and press down. The resulting coffee is wonderfully bold and heavy, and you don't need to know too much about brewing or extraction techniques to get it right.

Almost all French presses have the same design: There’s a brewing chamber with a handle and a plunger with a mesh filter. But the details of a French press can take your brew from just okay to extraordinary. We tested a range of models (18, to be exact) and tried a variety of brewing recipes to figure out the best French press for most people. We also recently re-tested our favorites, making sure they were still the best brewers. We can happily say that our top picks have held up over two years of continuous review.

The Winners, at a Glance

The Best French Press Coffee Maker

Fellow Clara French Press

$99 at Amazon $100 at Williams Sonoma $100 at Target

The Fellow Clara combines innovative design with excellent heat retention. With its sleek matte finish, double-walled chamber, and weighted handle, the Clara proves that the folks at Fellow understand what makes a French press brewer great.

The Best Value French Press Coffee Maker

Espro P3 French Press Coffee Maker

$40 at Amazon $40 at Home Depot $40 at Espro.com

The Espro P3 is probably the most “innovative” of the models we tested. The filter is a two-layer mesh cage meant to filter out fine particles, which means you can play with grind settings more. (What if you ground your coffee at an espresso setting? Wild things are happening!). The resulting coffee is cleaner than any cup we made with the other French presses, but it’s more difficult to clean and doesn’t give you the hefty, almost viscous coffee you'd expect from a French press.

The Best Insulated French Press Coffee Maker

Coffee Gator 34-Ounce French Press Coffee Maker

$34 at Amazon

The Coffee Gator is made of layered stainless steel that's both sturdy and keeps coffee hot over long periods of time. The dual filter ensures that grit and coffee sludge don’t end up in the final cup but still produces coffee with the heft you’d expect in a French press. It also comes with a bonus canister to bring your beans on the road.

The Tests

• Brewing Tests: We made coffee with all of the presses using a standard recipe of 40 grams of coffee per 600 grams of water (1:15 ratio), stirring the coffee after one minute, and then plunging after a total of four minutes. We then took the top four brewers and tried a totally different recipe from coffee expert and barista champion Nick Cho, who recommends cranking your grinder to its coarsest setting and brewing for almost double the time typically recommended. We kept the ratio of coffee to water consistent but stirred the slurry after 45 seconds, and plunged after eight minutes. We evaluated both brews for sweetness and flavor clarity.
• Heat Retention Tests: We pre-heated each French press, and then brewed a batch of coffee. We checked the temperature right away with an instant-read thermometer, then again at five minutes, and finally at 20 minutes to assess how well each French press could retain heat.
• Usability and Cleanup Tests: We evaluated how easy each French press was to use and tested any unique design features. We also cleaned each French press by hand multiple times throughout testing.

What's the Best Temperature for Coffee Extraction?

Coffee is made by extracting soluble components (simply put, the flavors) out of ground coffee using water. The National Coffee Association states that the ideal brewing temperature for coffee is between 195°F to 205°F. 

Anything hotter than 205°F will result in over-extraction, which causes bitter, acrid, and unpleasant flavors. Anything cooler than 195°F will result in under-extraction, where the resulting brew is sour and hollow. “Heat typically speeds up chemical reactions, so adding heat to your brewing process will increase the extraction rate of your brewing method,” says Erica Chadé, Specialty Coffee Educator.

A French press is a full immersion brewer, meaning that the coffee and water are hanging out with each other for a long time (four minutes before plunging). This means you want to try to keep your water within that ideal brewing temperature range for as long as possible. 

To be clear, you won’t be able to do so throughout the entire brew time, and that’s not even really the point (every brew method will lose heat, even pour-overs). Throughout testing, the water we used lost at least 20 degrees between the initial pour and the final brew. Yet, while it's inevitable that the water will lose heat, the rate it does so depends on how well the French press is insulated.

“Temperature stability is a variable that we understand will change throughout the French press brew process, and anything we can do to minimize its loss of heat helps with extraction and consistency from brew to brew,” says Akaash Saini, National Sales Manager for Ground Control Coffee Brewers in New York. “Pre-heating your vessel, and using double-walled French presses (like Fellow and Espro) will help.” (More on this below.)

What's the Right Grind Setting for French Press Coffee? 

Almost all French press recipes call for you to grind your coffee on the coarsest setting possible, but that's not what we recommend. There are two reasons: First, every grinder’s coarsest setting is different; second, you can increase extraction when you grind just a teeny bit finer. 

When it comes to determining the right grind setting, your best tool will always be your palate. We think that’s where lots of folks make mistakes—sometimes, coffee recipes are treated as prescriptive, but really, they’re meant to be jumping off points, and coffee is so easy to tinker with as long as you listen to what your palate is telling you. In general, if your coffee tastes sour and thin, try grinding finer. If it tastes bitter and syrupy, try a coarser grind setting. To start off with, though, we recommend going with a medium grind similar to what you’d use for drip coffee makers.

How to Use a French Press

For the best French press brews, we assembled all of our pro advice into a simple recipe that’s easy to follow and yields delicious results every time. You’ll need a kettle to heat your water, a digital gram scale, a timer, and something to stir the coffee with (a wooden spoon works well). While you can use pre-ground coffee, we also recommend grinding fresh with a high-quality burr grinder. 

• Weigh your coffee. An ideal French press ratio is 1:15—that is, one part coffee for every 15 parts water. For a French press with a 24-ounce capacity, this would be 40 grams of coffee and 600 grams of water. 
• Grind your coffee. We found the best results with a medium grind, similar to a drip coffee brewer. This extracted sweeter flavors, and our winning models had a fine enough filter screen to remove most of the grit. 

• Add your water. Set the French press on a scale and add water just off the boil (around 210ºF, ideally). Your target weight should be 600 grams of water for 40 grams of coffee, but any recipe that follows a 1:15 ratio of coffee to water will work just fine (as long as it fits in your French press).  

• Bloom the coffee. After adding water, the coffee will bloom upwards and form a crust. Let it sit for one minute, then stir the crust until it fully sinks (around 30 seconds).

• Brew. Allow the coffee to brew for at least five minutes. Because there’s no constant flow of water (like with drip coffee), a French press needs time to steep. You can let the coffee brew for up to 10 minutes before any bitterness over extracts. 
• Press gently. Press the plunger so that the filter screen just sinks below the surface of the brewed coffee, but don’t go further. Pressing the plunger to the bottom of the grounds kicks up more grit and adds bitterness to the cup.

• Pour slowly. When pouring your French press, tilt slowly at first so that the grounds naturally settle into the corner. Then, pour the coffee through the filter screen gently and out of the spout. This will yield a cleaner and sweeter brew with less sediment.

What We Learned

Higher Brew Temperatures Extracted Sweeter Coffee 

Across the board, insulated French presses that maintained a higher brew temperature extracted sweeter coffee. Both the Fellow Clara French Press and Coffee Gator French Press Coffee Maker only dropped around 20ºF over a four-minute brew time, and they both showed pronounced sweetness compared to uninsulated models that had more temperature loss. By maintaining a temperature closer to the ideal 195ºF to 205ºF range, insulated French presses were able to mimic the brewing conditions of high-end drip coffee makers where the water is constantly replenished and brew temperatures tend to be higher. Uninsulated models, like the Bodum Chambord, had lingering sour flavors and overall tasted flat. 

Insulated French Presses Kept Coffee Hotter for Longer

Most insulated French presses stabilized their temperature between 165ºF to 180ºF for a good 20 minutes after brewing, keeping the coffee hotter—and fresher. While there’s always the risk of the coffee in the French press continuing to extract the longer it sits (leading to a bitter finish), coffee’s natural acids start to break down when it cools off causing it to taste more sour. We found that coffee from insulated French presses was more pleasant to drink for up to 40 minutes than non-insulated ones, which started to develop unpleasant sourness around 12 minutes after brewing. 

Unfortunately, Pretty Ceramic French Presses Weren't Worth It

Most French presses are pretty basic-looking (some even border on unappealing-looking), so we understand the allure of an attractive ceramic model. We included Le Creuset's French press in our testing lineup, but were woefully disappointed. Despite the brand's reputation for quality, ceramic is simply not a good material for a French press. Ceramic, more so than glass or insulated carafes, pulls the heat out of the water, causing coffee to drop drastically in temperature over the course of brewing. This results in sour coffee—not ideal, to say the least. While you can pre-warm ceramic carafes by filling them with hot water, it takes a long time and is wasteful.

Fine-Mesh Screens Filtered Out More Grit

All three of our winning models had a fine-mesh filter screen that removed more grit while filtering. Traditional models, like Bodum Brazil, had coarser metal filter screens that allowed more particulates through, leaving the bottom dregs of our mugs gritty and chalky. We also liked that the Fellow Clara and the Espro P3 French Press Coffee Maker had silicone rings around their edges which kept particulates from sneaking around the edge of the filter while pouring. 

French Presses Were a Pain to Clean

No matter what type of filter they had, every French press we tested was a pain to clean. Wet coffee grounds are hard to scoop out into the trash or compost, and since coffee can’t go through a garbage disposal, we had to get creative. The best way to remove grounds was to swirl a little bit of clean water at the bottom of the French press to loosen the clumpy old coffee and then dump it out as quickly as possible. Even the OXO Brew GroundsLifter French Press, which has a built-in ladle to help remove spent coffee grounds, left us rinsing out annoying flecks that didn’t want to budge. 

The Criteria: What to Look for in a French Press

A great French press has to make excellent coffee. It should be easy to use and clean and also should keep coffee hot and maintain that temperature for long periods of time. We also don't have a preference for thermal over glass French presses: Insulated models will keep your coffee hotter for longer, but glass is cheaper and easier to clean.

Our Favorite French Presses

The Best French Press Coffee Maker

Fellow Clara French Press

$99 at Amazon $100 at Williams Sonoma $100 at Target

What we liked: The Clara gives you everything you need to brew beautiful coffee. It even comes with a wooden spoon so you can stir your grounds after the initial bloom. No scale to measure coffee? No problem! There are fill lines etched inside the brewer to indicate how much coffee and water to use (we'd still use a scale if you can because volume and weight can vary). The handle is weighted so when you pour your first cup, you’re not straining to carry a heavy brewer with an uneven weight distribution. It's beautiful, too. The matte black finish and curved lines sit nicely on any countertop. The Clara also has a heat-lock double-walled vacuum to insulate the brewing chamber, and a non-stick coating on the inside to make clean-up easy. 

In our temperature tests, the Clara kept coffee the hottest. From the initial pour to the end of the 4-minute brew, it lost about 19 degrees. Coffees on the Clara tasted like nougat and chocolate. We're not 100% convinced that has to do with the brewer directly, but rather indirectly through heat retention. On brewers where heat retention wasn’t as strong, there were noticeable sour notes and weird, lingering finishes that were unpleasant, but the coffee from the Clara drank well no matter when we poured a cup. 

It feels weird to say that cleaning a French press is a pleasant experience because they’re notoriously annoying to take apart and clean properly (if you have a traditional French press at home and you haven’t taken the bottom apart, now is a good time to unscrew the mesh screen and give it a soak to remove old coffee oils). The Clara screen is just one piece lined with rubber to create a seal so no coffee grounds slip past the side of the filter when you plunge. All you have to do to clean is unscrew the bottom. 

We know $99 is a lot to ask for a French press—the Bodum Brazil starts at $13—but this is a forever piece of equipment and, for the combination of brewing power, temperature consistency, and aesthetic and design choices, the Fellow Clara delivers on all fronts.

What we didn't like: Not much—besides the steep price, the Fellow Clara is an all-around fantastic French press. 

Key Specs

• Capacity: 24 ounces
• Dimensions: 4.53 x 6.69 x 7.87 inches
• Materials: Stainless steel
• Insulation: Yes, double-wall insulated
• Filter type: Single screen
• Dishwasher-safe: No
  

The Best Value French Press Coffee Maker

Espro P3 French Press Coffee Maker

$40 at Amazon $40 at Home Depot $40 at Espro.com

What we liked: In order to avoid sooty, sediment-laden coffee—a common French press complaint—Espro redesigned the entire bottom plunger piece, using two interlocking fine-mesh baskets to prevent any coffee particles from getting into your final cup. 

Because the Espro P3 is able to filter out so much of the sediment that ends up in coffee, this French press is actually primed for experimentation. In the section above, we talked about how to grind for a French press, and with the Espro P3, you can push your grind setting finer, which can be fun for folks who like to try new things and push the limits on coffee. 

This is also a great press for people who might not love the flavor of French press coffee, or at least don’t crave the characteristic grit produced by the brewing method. You might ask why someone would buy a French press if they didn’t care for French press coffee, and the answer is simple: It’s the easiest way to brew coffee. We think the under-$50 price tag is outstanding for the design.

What we didn't like: One thing we did miss on both Espro models we tested was the heft of a French-pressed coffee. We did get some higher notes—think more acids and fruit flavors—from the P3 and P6 versus other brewers, but that’s not what we're pulling out a French press for. We want some of the weight that comes from the coffee oils, and in every cup, we missed a little bit of that. Another downside: It's a pain to clean with its micro filters; you can't just quickly rinse it and set it aside.

But if you want to experiment and try out different brewing recipes (or hate experimenting and just want a nice, clean cup of coffee) this might be the press for you. 

Key Specs

• Capacity: 32 ounces
• Dimensions: 4.2 x 6.6 x 9.9 inches
• Materials: Glass, plastic
• Insulation: No
• Filter type: Dual screen
• Dishwasher-safe: No

The Best Insulated French Press Coffee Maker

Coffee Gator 34-Ounce French Press Coffee Maker

$34 at Amazon

What we liked: We weren't sure what to expect from this French press. It looks like most classic presses and has the mesh screen we're used to seeing, but the folks at Coffee Gator seem to know exactly what they’re doing and this press boasted all the right features: Its double-walled carafe was one of the top performers in our temperature testing, and the small adjustments they made to the French press’s classic design only enhanced the drinking experience, including the small arrow on top of the plunger to indicate where the lid and the pour spout should align to prevent spills.

This brewer is almost ideal for traveling. It’s virtually indestructible—but it’s also pretty heavy (clocking in at almost a pound more than the Fellow). That being said, it made what we would call the most “classic” cup of French press coffee out of the bunch. Not only did it extract well, but its dual mesh filters gave some nice flavor clarity. It's also one of our favorite cold brew makers.

What we didn't like: Their website says that you can only use coarsely ground coffee for a French press, and while technically that’s not true—you can use whatever you want! Who’s going to stop you?—we likely would keep the grind fairly coarse when using the Gator. It doesn’t have the rubber seal or micro filter that the Clara or the Espro models have, so you will get a significant amount of grit if you go too fine. 

Key Specs

• Capacity: 32 ounces
• Dimensions: 5.6 x 5.8 x 11.9 inches
• Materials: Steel
• Insulation: Yes, double-wall
• Filter type: Single screen
• Dishwasher-safe: No

Other French Presses to Consider

While these models weren't our top picks, they still did well in our testing.

• Bodum Tribute Coffee Press: This French press is well-built and stylish and performed well in tests, but the Fellow edged it out due to better heat retention.
• Sterling Pro French Press Coffee Maker: The Sterling Pro worked well and made a fine cup of coffee. But, unfortunately, the build quality was not quite up to the standards set by our top picks.
• Espro 6: The only measurable difference between the Espro 6 and the Espro 3 is that the 6 retains heat better, but it’s a big jump in price between models. If you’re thinking of making the leap, we think the Fellow Clara is a better pick. 
• Mueller French Press: The Mueller French press is double-walled and brewed great coffee. It’s just a teeny bit heavy and the mesh filters were a little clumsy. 
• Frieling French Press: We've seen the Frieling French press in coffee shops before, and like most of the double-walled brewers, it did a great job. However, it's expensive.
• Espro Coffee French Press P7: Like the Espro P6, the P7 features the same dual mesh filters and insulation, only in a sleeker package. The only real difference between the two is the outer design, so, at this price point, our overall pick still stands. 
  

The Competition

• Bodum Columbia Thermal French Press Coffee Maker: The Bodum Columbia made decent coffee, but its wide, round shape and small base made it a bit awkward to use and easy to tip over.
• Brim 8-Cup French Press Coffee Maker: Although this press made a decent cup of coffee, the build quality was subpar; it felt flimsy in comparison to our top picks. It also struggled to retain heat compared to the other French presses we tested, likely due to the glass beaker.
• Bodum Chambord: There are only a few coffee brewers as iconic as the Bodum Chambord. While it's a totally capable brewer, it just didn’t produce as flavorful a cup as some others, and the mesh screens are prickly on the sides. 
• Bodum Brazil: The Brazil is a slightly more affordable French press from Bodum. We ordered one to test how well a French press could froth milk, but as a French press, this model fell short and couldn’t retain heat well. 
• OXO Brew GroundsLifter French Press: We initially thought this French press—which features an item called the GroundsLifter, a ladle to scoop out coffee grounds—would help produce a cup of coffee with minimal grit, but its glass build didn’t extract coffee well and produced one of the thinnest cups of coffee we tried. 
• Le Creuset Stoneware French Press: Every fiber of our being wanted to love the Le Creuset French press because it’s so beautiful, but ceramic sucks heat from water unless thoroughly pre-heated, which takes forever. The coffee wasn’t as bad as we would have expected, but this brewer lost the most heat over time and couldn’t extract as well as other presses. 
• Bodum Caffettiera French Press Coffee Maker: A slightly more colorful version of the classic Chambord, the Caffettiera fell flat on flavor tests. Plus, its glass construction couldn’t hold the temperature as steady as its dual-walled competition. 
• Stanley French Press: While the insulation on this Stanley French press held up to the competition, it flunked the taste test. The lid and plunger were consistently loose, allowing grounds to bypass the filter, leaving all the cups murky and bitter.
• OXO Brew Venture French Press: With a plastic jacket, the Venture had better thermal stability than its glass counterparts, but, ultimately, the filter was lacking and produced chalky and bitter-tasting coffee.

FAQs

What type of coffee is best for a French press?

Any type of coffee will work in a French press; feel free to use your favorite beans! The most important thing to consider is the grind size. French press filters aren’t as fine as paper filters, so a coarser grind size ensures less sediment and grounds in the finished cup of coffee.

How long should you brew French press coffee?

Brew time is dependent on how coarse the beans are ground as well as how hot the water is. At a coarse grind and a water temperature of the recommended 205°F, it should take about four to six minutes to brew a pot of coffee in your French press.

What does a French press actually do?

A French press is a simple coffee brewing method: it has a large chamber where coffee and water are added and allowed to steep, with a metal mesh filter attached to a plunger that strains the grounds after brewing. It's a manual brew method that lets the user steep the coffee for as long as they like, making it a popular brewing device for people who want to customize their coffee brewing.

Is French press coffee better than regular drip coffee?

Because a French press is a manual brew method, it allows the user more control over brewing variables like steep time, water temperature, and grind size. Because cheaper drip coffee brewers brew at less-than-ideal temperatures, French presses allow the user to brew better-tasting coffee, though because the user has so much control over the brewing, there is also more room for error.

Is a French press worth it?

A French press is a relatively inexpensive brewing device that lets the user brew great-tasting coffee, and with care, can last a very long time. Because it allows the user full control over every brewing variable, it's easier to get great coffee with a French press than with a cheap, automatic drip coffee maker. There are also very few moving parts in a French press, and with many models made out of steel, it's unlikely that anything will break due to regular wear and tear.

What's the best size French press?

Our favorite French presses are 24 to 32 ounces (three to four cups). For most French press users, this is the standard size we'd recommend.

Can you make cold brew in a French press?

Yes, you can absolutely make cold brew in a French press. Just add your grounds to the French press's carafe, pour in water, and put the top on but don't press it down. After waiting about 12 hours, you can press the plunger down and your cold brew is ready.

Why We're the Experts

• Ashley Rodriguez has been in the coffee industry since 2010, having worked as a barista, shop manager, and coffee trainer. She's written several coffee-related reviews for Serious Eats, including milk frothers and espresso machines.
• Jesse Raub was Serious Eats' commerce writer and spent over 15 years working in the specialty coffee industry. He was our in-house coffee expert and regularly tested coffee gear for this site.
• For this review, we tested 18 French press coffee makers. We also interviewed Erica Chadé (Specialty Coffee Educator) and Akaash Saini (National Sales Manager for Ground Control Coffee Brewers in New York).
• We recently re-tested all of our favorite French presses (as well as some new models, like the Brim 8-Cup French Press Coffee Maker), to make sure our top picks still hold up. This means our favorite French presses have stood up to years of testing and constant evaluation. 
• A couple of our editors own our favorite French presses and regularly use them at home.