Why does coffee have to sit in a French press for like 5min to be strong enough, whereas with pour over the water is only in contact with the grounds for 10-15 seconds and produces a similar strength?

Question

My first guess is that it has something to do with gravity pulling out the flavor as it narrows through the tunnel of Godly caffeination, my second guess is absolute fucking magic…

Edit: haha makes you pick a flair but I literally cannot think of a subject that doesn’t relate to coffee so we’ll go with “physics.”

In: Physics

Answer 1

Ahh as a physics person that loves coffee, this just makes me happy.

This has less to do with physics but rather coffee preparation. If you take a look at any coffee brewing guide they will recommend that you grind coarser for french press, and finer for drip.

Coffee is made when water “washes” off the soluble material from your coffee beans. Larger pieces of coffee (like those that you’d use for french press) have less surface area than finer ground coffee (like drip coffee). So while contact time between French Press and Drip differ vastly, the amout of soluble material that the water extracts for each method is similar due to it’s grind size.

Similarly, that is why you need an insanely fine grind for espresso because all the extraction happens in 30 seconds.