Only 7% Of People Use This Method To Make Coffee At Home
With cafes closed due to the ongoing pandemic, we have been forced to brew our coffee at home. So, we at Mashed decided to ask you how you make your coffee at home, and about 25,000 people worldwide responded.
The most common way for our respondents to make coffee at home fell under the category of "Other" with 38 percent of the vote. Some used percolators, some Keurig, and others don't drink coffee. But none of these sub-options were large enough to have beaten the 36 percent of the our second place answer: using a drip coffee maker — the largest single method for making coffee at home.
After drip coffee, the survey became a competition for second, third, and fourth. The winner of that match was the pour over method with 10 percent. The espresso machine appeared after that with 9 percent. Last came the French press, with only 7 percent of the vote, and perhaps an even smaller percentage than the percolators.
French presses are too difficult for many users
For those who like to use a French press, the unpopularity evidenced in the survey must boggle the mind somewhat. However, Matt Buchanan's complaint about French presses in a 2011 Gizmodo piece may explain to the partisans why others don't feel the same.
"It's not impossible to make good coffee with a French Press — you can pull out some serious skills to produce some serious coffee," Buchanan writes, following this with a warning that the coffee produced from a French press tends to be dirty and of the wrong extraction, either over and bitter or under and watery. He then goes on to suggest a drip coffee maker instead as it is really quite easy to use.
Fair enough. However, for those who are still beguiled by the aesthetics of a French Press, Kitchn covered three basic mistakes many make while attempting to use one. The mistakes are grinding the beans incorrectly (the article says it's better to do it yourself), not measuring the ratio between coffee and water carefully enough, and leaving the coffee in the French press after pressing, which leads to over extraction.
Some may find this too much work. In fact, as the survey showed, the vast majority found this to be too work intensive. However, if you do alter your coffee-making habits around the methods required by a French press, you will be rewarded with a good cup of coffee.