Few mornings start without a stir. A press pot gets its grounds, the hot water goes in, and a spoon swirls everything together before the plunger comes down. For millions of households that spoon is the one that matters now.
Bodum USA recalled 5.9 million French press coffee makers on Oct. 29, after 70 reports of glass carafes breaking during use, including 48 reports of burns, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. The remedy is a repair rather than a refund: owners stop stirring with metal spoons or utensils and ask Bodum for a free plastic stirring spoon and a warning label.
Eight Models, 8-Cup and 12-Cup Carafes
The recall covers Bodum French presses with replaceable glass carafes in eight model lines: Bistro, Brazil, Caffettiera, Chambord, Crema, Java, Jesper and Kenya. The CPSC listed both 8-cup and 12-cup sizes, and said the Bodum name appears on the frame and inner lid of most models and is engraved on the carafes along with product warnings.
They were sold at Target, Walmart, and coffee and home goods stores nationwide, plus Bodum.com, Amazon.com, Target.com and Walmart.com, from 1974 through October 2026 for about $15 to $65, the agency said. The recall number is 27-055. Bodum USA, based in New York, imports the presses, which were made in Portugal and Thailand.
That date range is long. Bodum’s first French press, the Bistro, launched in 1974, according to Wikipedia’s account of the company, so some of the recalled presses are older than many of the kitchens they sit in.
Countertop gear gets compared constantly, as in a COSORI versus Ninja air fryer face-off, yet a plain glass press rarely makes that list. Cleaning a press is a separate routine from the recall, but the same glass is involved, and a guide to cleaning a dishwasher is a reminder of how many glass pieces pass through a kitchen’s hands every week.
The Metal Spoon Problem
The size of the recall helps explain the headline: 5.9 million units is a very large number for one kitchen item. TODAY called Bodum one of the most popular makers of French presses, and said the company described itself in a statement as family-owned, with 72 years of making household products.
According to the CPSC, a carafe can break during use if it is damaged or cracked, including from stirring with a metal spoon. TODAY reported that the recall is not tied to a manufacturing defect, but to the way a press can be used, since glass can weaken over time.
Bodum, in a statement quoted by TODAY, called the recall a chance to reinforce warnings against using a cracked or damaged carafe and against stirring with metal spoons. It described the rate of reported breakage as “extremely low” given the millions it has sold in the U.S. over decades. The company also said that going forward, the products will be sold with the plastic stirring spoon and an additional warning label.
Product recalls tend to arrive in clusters, and kitchens collect them. Recent examples include Costway high chairs sold at Walmart and Target and about 2,960 Cummins Onan dual-fuel generators, each with its own fix.
Plastic or wood is the usual swap in many kitchens. A press is simple, and its glass wall is the part that takes the knocks of daily use. Owners who also rely on a drip machine or a single-cup brewer, like the ones compared in a Keurig versus Ninja matchup for fall mornings, face no such change.
How to Claim the Free Spoon
The CPSC listed several ways to reach Bodum. The phone number is 888-879-8213, answered 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET Monday through Friday. Owners can also go to bodum.com and click “Recall Information,” or use the company’s recall site. The CPSC’s contact list also includes the email address [email protected].
The agency gave one more instruction for the interim: stop using metal spoons or utensils to stir coffee in the glass carafe. The label Bodum sends advises against using cracked or damaged carafes as well as against metal spoons.
Coffee drinkers who skim the notice may wonder if their press qualifies. The model names on the CPSC page are the quickest check, and the CPSC says photos that help match a carafe to a line are posted on the recall website.
A Brewer With a Long History
The French press itself is older than the recalled lines. Wikipedia’s history of the device traces forerunners to an 1852 patent by Jacques-Victor Delforge and Henri-Otto Mayer, and a sealed-filter design from Milanese designers Giulio Moneta and Attilio Calimani, patented in the U.S. in 1929.
Bodum’s Chambord, one of the eight recalled lines, grew from a cafetiere launched in the early 1980s by Bonjour Imports, Bodum’s predecessor. Bodum bought the rights in 1983, and the American Culinary Institute gave the Chambord a Gold Medal in 2003, Wikipedia says.
The brewing method has stayed simple. Wikipedia’s entry describes a coarse grind, about 30 grams of coffee to 500 milliliters of water, and roughly four minutes of steeping before a slow press. Nothing in the recall changes that routine except the choice of spoon. Anyone who stirs the grounds, as many recipes call for, now reaches for something that is not metal.
What Comes Next for Press Owners
For Bodum owners, the steps are short: confirm the model, request the spoon and label, and stop stirring with metal. The recall also gives the pantry shelf a reason to hold an extra plastic spoon next to the coffee.
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
Image: Henri-Otto MAYER/ Jacques-Victor DELFORGE – Public domain/Wikimedia Commons
