The french press is a design that has been around since the
early to mid 1900’s. It is simple, effective, and produces good
coffee consistently. The one drawback, however, is the cleaning
process. The coffee grounds are pressed into the bottom
of the glass container and are hard to clean out. The most
convenient method is to just rinse out the container into the
sink, but coffee grounds do not break down and are harmful to
plumbing. Coffee grounds should be thrown in to the trash or
composted, but the current french press design does not make
that easy to do.
I propose a simple change in the mechanics which will solve
this issue. The plunger should be inserted first, then the coffee
and water. When the coffee is ready, the plunger is pulled out,
taking the coffee grounds with it. Some basic redesign will be
needed to accomplish this new action with ease. (Not letting
the coffee grounds spill out of the plunger when before you
reach the trash, etc.)
