I don’t know if the French really had anything to do with this, or French Fries for that matter, but I love my new French Press! Got some fresh coarsely ground coffee beans from Starbucks the other day, and they offered me a free cup of coffee. Plus, I snagged the 3 menu posters from the holidays. Made my day! (I posed with a poster, but didn’t have time to photoshop it re: like son, like father)
The coffee does taste better via French Press. So good that I drink coffee black now. I’m told that you can make great tea in it too. No more messing with infusers. Thanks to Dave & Lucy Wang for the tip!
Side note: I see that Starbucks has a newly redesigned home page, classic case of executive preference for flashy visuals on the front page taking up real estate to promote the latest ad, instead of serving web users with how they actually use the web – to quickly get to what they want, which for me, is store locator for meetups and renewing my Starbucks card). What I’d love to see is for Starbucks to serve French-Pressed coffee at the store, that’d bring me back more often! 
How wonderful. I just use an American stainless steel pot, for tea. Kinda unimpressive, but the water still turns amber.
Beautiful: French Press Coffee is soooo good. I would also recommend two other beans: Zoka from Seattle and Ruta Maya from Austin. Very good.
Shalom
I love my French press also and I am always glad to see new “converts” joining our ranks. It takes a while to perfect the use of a press, but man…you are in for some awesome cups of coffee.
For me the Starbucks blend is waaaay too roasted and I end up with a bitter and burnt taste in my mouth. It may be ok for flavored coffees an whatnot, but other lighter roasts work much better in a press. Believe it or not, Dunkin Donuts has an excellent blend and the coffee McDonalds sells is not too bad either for a regular coffee maker that is.
I first owned a French press in Taiwan, where I used it to make tea. That one was pyex. Now I have a stainless steel one from Starbucks that I use for my coffee. It’s much better than a drip coffee maker since I really only want to make one (large) cup. For a while I was hard core, and ground my own beans every morning. But then I got lazy and bought pre-ground coffee.
Lucky!
Chris, thanks for the recommendation. Now I have an even more open palette to learn about coffee flavors, will learn to be a little more discerning with tastes and see what I like. Virgil, good point – now that I can really taste the coffee in its full essence, a lesser overly-burnt coffee bean might suit me better, especially since I drink it black more often now. Will see where my coffee culinary tasting journey leads me to…
The introduction of the French Press to my life was one of the early steps toward spending far too much time and money in pursuit of the best possible cup of coffee. Consider yourself warned.
I just found out, after years of Starbucking, that you can order a coffee French press style at Starbucks! And it costs the same as drip coffee too!