How much coffee do you add to a cafetiere or French press?
The short answer is 4 heaped scoops of medium to coarse ground coffee added to an 8 cup or 1 litre sized cafetiere or French press.
A longer answer needs to account for lots of different variables such as the coffee you are using, the size of the cafetiere and how you are measuring out the coffee.
The world of coffee opinion can become quite prescriptive on the topic – but in the end it is a question of adding coffee according to personal taste and creating your own routine for recreating this every time.
Starting with ratios of coffee to water…
General opinion on adding coffee to cafetieres, is that the most reliable way of describing this is in ratios of adding hot water to coffee grounds. Suggested ratios are:
- Stronger: 12 x more water than coffee grounds
- Medium: 15 x more water
- Lighter: 17 x more water
In practice, a more convenient measure is required to make things a little simpler…
Weighing is preferred by some as accurate and simple, if you have scales to hand
If you have electronic scales and want to achieve precise and replicable results, the most accurate way of adding coffee is by weight to a known volume of hot water.
A standard 8 cup cafetiere contains 1 litre of water: [34 fl oz]
- Stronger: add 45 grams of ground coffee [1.6 oz]
- Medium: add 36g of ground coffee [1.3 oz]
- Lighter: add 32g of ground coffee [1.13 oz]
Weighing is accurate but not especially convenient…
Simplest of all is to use the scoop that often comes with the cafetiere
Coffee scoops come in different sizes, but commonly cafetieres come with a 7g scoop. When heaped a 7g scoop holds roughly half as much again – 10.5 g
So, for a standard 8 cup or 1L cafetiere, use the following number of heaped scoops as a guide:
- Stronger: try 4-5 heaped scoops of ground coffee
- Medium: try 3-4 heaped scoops
- Lighter: try 3 heaped scoops
The short answer is 4 heaped scoops added to an 8 cup cafetiere … !
Cafetieres and French presses come in a range of sizes
The following table offers a suggested guide of how much ground coffee to add to your particular cafetiere or French press by size
