The French press, also known as a cafetière or press pot, dates back to a French patent from 1852 but reached the canonical design we use today through Italian designer Attilio Calimani in 1929. The 8 Cup size, around 1 L of brewed coffee, is the most common format in homes and the reference most recipes are written for.
The brewing idea is deceptively simple: fully immerse ground coffee in hot water, let it steep, then push the grounds down with a metal mesh plunger. Because the filter is metal rather than paper, oils and fine particles stay in the cup, giving the French press its signature full body, rounder mouthfeel, and slightly heavier sediment than any pour-over can produce.
A canonical recipe, closely aligned with James Hoffmann's approach, uses 60 g of coffee to 1000 g of water (1:16), a coarse grind, water at 94–96 °C, and a steep of 4 minutes before breaking the crust and waiting 5–8 more minutes so the fines settle. Plunge slowly and only enough to lock the screen in place — pushing all the way to the bottom continues extracting the sediment you spent the last minutes trying to settle.