Look a little closer
See the mechanism
The plunger separates particles from the brew
Read the diagram
Coffee steeps in water before the plunger is lowered. During a gentle downward stroke, liquid can pass upward through the mesh while the screen holds larger grounds below it. Support plates keep the mesh in place; it is a permeable filter, not a sealed piston.
Original simplified side section, not to scale. Blue denotes the coffee liquid; coral arrows show its relative upward passage through the lowering filter. Dot size is symbolic, not a pore or grind measurement. Very fine particles can remain in the cup. This is not a pressure-brewing or recipe diagram.
Diagram basis: Bodum catalog 2017, PDF p. 36 / printed p. 38: mesh and support plates.
Brewing starts with the plunger raised
Water surrounds the grounds in the beaker. Bodum's instructions put a steeping interval before lowering the plunger. During that interval, the mesh isn't pushing the water through anything; the coffee is immersed in it.
Pressing is the conspicuous movement, but extraction has already been taking place throughout the beaker before the plunger moves. The next step brings the filter through a drink that has been brewing around the grounds.
Sources: Bodum
The filter passes liquid and retains particles
The descending filter doesn't act like a sealed piston squeezing all the drink ahead of it. Liquid can pass through its mesh. The assembly moves the retained grounds toward the bottom, leaving brewed coffee above the filter for pouring.
Bodum's parts guide identifies the mesh and the plates that hold it: a spiral plate at the edge and a supporting cross plate. Their purpose is to keep the filter in position as it separates grounds from liquid. The larger grounds stay beneath the filter while the drink passes through its openings.
Sources: Bodum
More force isn't the aim
A filter resisting movement is not an invitation to press harder. Bodum specifies coarse grounds and gentle lowering, warning that fine grounds can clog the filter and that excessive force can eject hot liquid. The resistance tells you about flow through the filter, not how much extra flavor a harder push will produce.
Once lowered, the mesh helps keep grounds back as coffee leaves through the spout. The exact lid and filter-edge arrangements depend on the model. The essential sequence remains immersion, filtering movement, then pouring—not a pressure cycle hidden inside the knob.
The thing to remember
Steeping makes the brew; the lowered mesh holds back much of the ground coffee while liquid passes through.
What this example leaves out
This follows Bodum's mesh-plunger construction. Filter, lid and edge-seal details vary. A metal mesh does not promise a particle-free drink, and the illustration is not a brewing recipe or pressure specification.
Sources & further reading
Source access dates are listed below. Manufacturer descriptions and patents support the specific constructions described, not every product.
- French Press Coffeemakers — Instructions for use, Version1 2019-03-08 ↗
Bodum · Retrieved 2026-10-16 · Grounds steep before plunger is lowered; coarse grind and gentle pressure; clogging and scalding hazard from excessive force; lid/pouring variants.
Direct PDF fetched in memory and zero-based pages5–6 extracted/read with pypdf; web fetch failed. No PDF image inspection claimed. Exact recipe/time omitted; this isn't a brewing manual. - Bodum Catalog2017 — Parts of The French Press Coffee Maker ↗
Bodum · Retrieved 2026-10-16 · Filter mesh separates grounds from brew; spiral plate and cross plate hold mesh; liquid passes through the filter.
PDF fetched in memory; actual zero-based page35 / PDF page36 / printed38 extracted/read. Plan's ambiguous page36 locator resolved. Manufacturer's no-ground wording qualified because it doesn't establish zero fine particles for all grind/product combinations.