From the hip barista conjuring latte art to the kissaten (traditional Japanese coffee shop) owner working an archaic siphon machine, there's a lot of fuss and theater involved in preparing coffee. So it can be hard to get excited about the French press sometimes. It's the saxophone of brewing methods: any old idiot can get the hang of it it after a few tries.
There's some flashy equipment behind the counter at the Nishi-Azabu branch of Maruyama Coffee, but the method of choice here is the humble cafetiere. As barista Seiya Yamashiro explains, the shop favors French presses for the same reason it uses metal filters in its high-end Steampunk machine and Cores gold filters for its drip brews: to retain the coffee's all-important oils.
"We want to extract as much of the natural flavor as possible, without anything getting in the way," he says. Paper filters, your days are numbered.