As promised, I'll explain how to make proper French coffee in an antique enamelware Biggin later on. It really does make delicious coffee, but can be quite strong! I've had coffee in France that you could stand a spoon straight up in! {not really, but oh my. There is a reason some French people drink the lait in their coffee!}
It's why they use the French bol or cafe au lait bowl, wide enough so that the delicious aroma of the coffee can be enjoyed, and large enough to add quite a good amount of milk in the mornings.
Antique Blue & White Maastricht Bol
Antique Hand Painted Limoges Demitasse Cup
Antique French Hand Painted Demitasse Cups
Obviously, in the French country homes all over France, coffee making and coffee drinking was not as elegant, but no less delicious. A simple enamelware coffee maker was used, called a biggin, these have a filter inside to hold the coffee grounds. Today, most French Country aficionados use these for display only.
A biggin is usually a three or four part coffee pot, the filter sits on the top of the pot, under the lid. The white pot below has just three parts, a pot, a filter top, and a lid.
This one has four parts. It has the usual pot, filter "cone" lid, but then also a second filter that fits into the cone filter.
Antique French Swirl Enamel Biggin
So, how do you make coffee in those three part enamelware coffee pots? I've had some of you ask, either in blog posts, or emails or on Instagram, so here you go: it's easy!
Here are the steps to make coffee in a French enamelware Biggin:
1. Boil water.
2. Rinse out the coffee pot with hot water.
3. Put the filter on the top of the pot, and add ground coffee.
4. Pour just enough hot water on the coffee grounds in filter to get them wet.
This will saturate the coffee and bring out the best possible flavor.
5. Slowly pour in more hot water, it will drip into the coffee pot part.
Continue slowly pouring in all the hot water and let it drip all the way through the filter portion. When you are done {be sure to figure out how much your pot will hold!} take the filter part off, put the lid on pot, and enjoy the coffee!
There have been many ways to make coffee over the centuries, the simplest is still using an enamelware biggin, a two-part coffeepot with a built in filter.
à bientôt
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22 comments
I have memories of my Godfather (who spent a lot of his youth in Paris), using a Biggin. However he had a pair of Biggin pots (shaped like teapots) and when the water was finished filtering through into the first pot, he would transfer the filter, with its damp grounds still inside, over to the second pot and slowly pour the coffee from pot number one back through into pot number two. He would do this slowly several more times and ended up with extremely strong coffee which became the ‘master brew’ – original instant coffee. You poured some concentrate into your coffee cup and added boiling water to taste. He learned this method from the family he lived with in Paris in the 1930s
I have the same! And can’t figure how to use it!
I don’t drink coffee, yet I’m from New Orleans!!! (Go figure). I have a ’biggin" and am making cafe au last for Thanksgiving coffee. I have Cafe du Monde coffee…looking forward to this! :)
I have just bought a French “biggin” – not a word we use in the UK!
It has 4 parts – like the one in the article – but what is the purpose of the top “filter” (the one with the large holes)?
I am assuming that you don’t put coffee in that, but, if not, what purpose does it serve?
Cordialement.
Mike
Jennifer, yes, you want to add boiling water to the biggin with the coffee in the filter part so that the hot water “drips” into the bottom.
OK so if I’m reading this right you need 2 pots, one to boil water in and then the Biggin pot. Once the water from the second pot boils you pour the water over the ground in the basket of the Biggin pot?
I have one of my grand moms. It though has two additional filters that seem to fit inside. Would of the filter that sits on top. One is concave and the other convex. 5 pieces total. Would you be able to tell me how the two internal ones are to be used?
Diane, if it is the tiny one with a little handle, I believe that is used to press down and keep down the ground coffee when pouring water on the coffee. So it doesn’t float up.
What is the second filter used for. I have a similar pot but could not decide the use for the second filter
Hi Lidy,
Wonderful to see all those lovely old pieces of French enamelware, and the beautiful coffee cups!! Like you, I love browsing French fleamarkets – it’s just amazing what one can find sometimes!!
The French drink their ‘cafe au lait’ in bowls only in the morning for breakfast. The rest of the day it will be simply ‘cafe’, in an espresso-sized cup, a ‘grand creme’ similar to cappuccino, or a ‘noisette’, a shot of espresso with a tiny dash of milk.
I’ve not yet come across the coffee in the evening as the start of an evening party here in my area of France, but people do invite for coffee after they have had their evening meal (quite often taken at 7pm), and they might serve something like sparkling wine or a digestif later on. Whatever the occasion, it’s always convivial here in France!!