product review

-- Product Review -- 

I first responded to Tiger Elite’s (marketing company) offer on June 16^th to do a review for Press Café’s French Coffee Press. Scottie Rae, Co-Founder Press Cafe of MSG Market Source, was a pleasure to work with; there was really good marketing and customer service involved here. Press Café is a small family run business. In doing some research on the company I learned that they support the Wounded Warrior Project and also Children’s Cancer Research charities. You can find out more about the company at:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/MSG-Market-Source/750130948418757

I absolutely love coffee presses. The only electricity used is in boiling the water and you can put jsut the amount of water you need in the kettle rather than bringing a full kettle to boil. Or if you have a wood stove going in the cooler months you can heat the water in a pot on the wood stove instead. You can easily make one or two cups at a time (most presses only do 2 coffee cups worth). The loose coffee grounds are wet and easy to swish out with a little water, dumping them on an outdoor plant, on the lawn, or in the compost bucket. There is no excess steam staining the underside of kitchen cupboards (like most machines do), no noisy gurgling, and there's no risk of overheated and wasted coffee or stale coffee getting burned on which happens when a machine is left on. Another ecological point for presses is that there are no filters involved, saving money and reducing our impact on the environment. 

We picked the press up on July 4^th via postal service a couple miles on the US side of the border (we’re located in Canada), which happened to be when we were crossing the border again, but the shipping order stated it was estimated to arrive on June 24^th, and Amazon is pretty good about being accurate about that. 

The coffee press arrived packaged in a white cardboard box wrapped securely in bubble wrap. All the packaging was recyclable… including the cardboard shipping box (5.5” High -by- 7” Wide -by- 10” Long).

It came with an additional screen and a long stainless steel coffee ground scoop with an interesting serrated clip for clipping on the coffee bag (I assume). This also means the scoop not only seals the bag but is always kept with the bag so you don’t have to search in a drawer for it. 

coffee spoon and extra screen

Also came with instructions offering 7 steps to using the coffee press. Although I’ve been a coffee consumer for more than 30 years I actually learned something from the instructions. 

This product has a beautiful design… we’ve had several coffee presses over the years as we are true coffee lovers but never came across one so well designed – this one had the additional benefit of a vented lid, which could be used to screen out any stray coffee bits. It also aided in making the coffee flow better when pouring, it is the only press we’ve used that didn’t spill or dribble in some way. 

Their stainless steel screen is much more fine than our other 2 (one for camping one for the house) and that means less sludge in the coffee cup. Of course if you use course ground coffee there is less of an issue with sludge, but course ground is not easy to find in grocery stores and getting an even grind in a coffee grind machine doesn’t always result in consistency. The screen is also designed so that no grounds will escape into the cup. 

Interestingly, most coffee presses can also be used for loose-leaf tea, enabling a person to really enjoy a wide array of flavors and beverages. This aspect appeals to us as gardeners as we do dry a lot of our own herbs harvested from the garden and landscape beds.

I found the press is easily disassembled, although the glass carafe fit pretty snug, and the whole thing can be cleaned in the dishwasher. The carafe is specially designed for high heat resistance (up to 180˚).  The only possible note I should make here is that in the 3-part screen system there is a bump in the design, literally – a bump. I checked our other 2 presses and neither had this bump. I’m sure it isn’t going to be an issue, though.

Not sold on Amazon.ca yet, but you can find it at Amazon.com – where it has a list price of $39.97 US but is currently on sale for$ 25.97.

I prefer this coffee press of the other two we own – there’s no mess when you pour and the bottom of the coffee cup has less sludge in it.

 

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