Same here with the hand grinder and French press. There are many factors I'm experimenting with. This is what I've found so far:

- Finer grind is better. I know they say use coarse for the French press, but I find this gives too weak a flavor. Finer grind also means I spend a good 10 mins grinding each morning, which kind of sucks but it's part of my routine and feels like honest work for a worthy outcome.

- Water temperature: I find cooler is usually better. I can set my kettle to 80deg C. I've heard using room temp water and letting it brew in the fridge over night produces amazing results but I've never done this.

- Brew time: I leave it for 2min 30s

- Stirring: I've found this to be a massive factor, and stirring even a little too much can easily cause awful bitter / bland flavors. I stir extremely gently and briefly, just enough to make sure there are no clumps.

- Freshness: fresh is noticeably better with more complex flavors (within a few weeks of roast date).

- Amount of coffee: Whatever fills the hand grinder. The ground result is visually similar in what would be used for an espresso in a cafe.

- Type of beans: I go for rich and bold flavors. I don't really care for the fruitier coffees.

With all these factors, I still struggle with consistency. Most days the result ends pretty good. Sometimes it results in an amazing coffee that makes made my day. Rich, smooth, complex, zero bitterness or unpleasantness. Each sip takes me on a flavor journey. The problem is I can't figure out what I do differently on those days to produce such great results.

You either make enormous batches of coffee, really exaggerate how much time it takes you to grind coffee, or straight up need a new grinder.

It shouldn’t take you much more than a minute to hand-grind coffee for a shot of _espresso_ - if grinding for a French Press genuine takes you that long, something is seriously off.

_Especially_ if you drink medium-to-dark, less dense, more brittle coffees.