My French press carafe cracked right before my morning coffee

It happened two days ago, just as I was about to pour the boiling water over the grounds. I heard a small pop and saw a thin crack run from the top rim all the way down to the handle. I've had that Bodum press for about five years, and I guess the daily heat cycles finally got to it. I was so annoyed because I had just ground my favorite beans from a local roaster in town. I had to quickly pour the hot water into a regular pot and let it steep, then strain it through a paper filter, which was a total mess. The coffee tasted okay, but it wasn't the same thick body I love from a press. Now I'm stuck using my old drip machine until I find a good replacement. What's a solid, durable French press brand that can handle daily use without breaking the bank?

4 comments

4 Comments

sean483mo agoTop Commenter

Man, my old press cracked and I just used a mason jar for a week.

paul6083mo ago

Honestly, five years from a daily use Bodum is a pretty good run. That glass carafe is the weak point on any brand, not a sign of bad quality. You could buy the fanciest press out there and a sudden temperature shock or a small chip will still crack it. The real issue is expecting any glass to last forever with boiling water. Maybe the problem isn't the brand, but sticking with a design that has a known failure point.

lilyt233mo ago

Spot on, paul608, it's like we expect things to be perfect now when they never really were. We see this with phones and appliances too, where one common part fails and we blame the whole brand. Maybe we just notice the weak spots more because everything else works so well for so long.

logan2711mo ago

That bit about "we notice the weak spots more because everything else works so well" is a solid point, but I gotta push back a little on the phone comparison. With phones, the battery or screen craps out way before the processor or camera stops being good, so it's more about planned obsolescence than just noticing weak spots. With a french press, it's just glass being glass - heat shock will crack it no matter what, it's not like they're designing it to fail after a certain number of brews. Big difference between a predictable physics problem and a company intentionally making something hard to fix.