Best coffee I have ever had.

Best coffee I ever had was from: The Blue Nile, an ethiopian restaurant.

Interesting, my particular favorite right now is ETHIOPIAN YIRGACHEFFE roasted right up and maybe a little into the point where the beans are a very dark brown with the oils starting to release. You can taste a citrus/berry flavor. It may be what you enjoyed in the resturant.

EY is one of my all-time favorites.

KAZ said:

Interesting, my particular favorite right now is ETHIOPIAN YIRGACHEFFE roasted right up and maybe a little into the point where the beans are a very dark brown with the oils starting to release. You can taste a citrus/berry flavor. It may be what you enjoyed in the resturant.

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Thanks for putting a (possible/probable) name to that. I'll try looking for the EY in the stores. I got my wife a french press for X-Mas and I'm sure she'd appreciate something better than the standard grocery store blend all the time.

You are very welcome Glenn, the Freedom Press expert here is none other than our own Bloof. I'm told that with the press system it is important to have a good burr grinder that you can set for the proper grind. There is a good description of the process at SweetMarias.com in the press section.

I've been using my hand grinder for years. Not sure what a burr grinder is, although I've been reading and hearing that term for years. As long as the grounds are coarse.

Just remember one rule of coffee grinding. Grinding your beans to powder no matter what equipment you are using IS THE WRONG THING TO DO. YOU MUST GRIND TO THE SPECIFICITY OF YOUR EQUIPMENT.

For a Freedom Press, the grind is coarse, which means a rough grind, comparatively large and irregular, not a fine, uniform grind as you would for a drip or percolator, and certainly not a powder as you would for espresso or Turkish.

The zassenhaus hand crank and the excellent Solis and others allow you to set the burrs (metal that grinds the bean against other metal) to a chosen grind and produce an even result. These are called "burr" as opposed to the little electric machines that have a metal blade that rotates at high speed and grinds the coffee so badly (some coarse,some very fine) that you will have a lot of sediment in your press. They are OK for a drip filter process.

Bloofington said:

Not sure what a burr grinder is, although I've been reading and hearing that term for years.

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A burr grinder uses two conical shapped gears. By varying the space between the two gears (usually by raising or lowering one of the two) you can change the size of the grind. The big advantages to a burr grinder are that they work at lower temperatures and so don't heat the beans additionally like the blade type units and that the size of the final grind is far more uniform. In addition, blade type grinders often miss parts of the beeans while over grinding others. In a bur grinder since all the resultant grind has to fit through a uniform space you get a far more uniform grind.

I see. Thanks for the information. In that case, my little 13 year old Zassenhaus is definitely a burr grinder.