As Ivan can testify, I to like my coffee. Agreed, a French press makes a very good cup of coffee. The problem is the singular in that sentence. I generally want more then one cup and am to lazy to go through the process each time I want a cup. Therefore I usually settle for a less then perfect cup of coffee.
As for storage I take my lead from
a local coffee shop. He says store it in the freezer in a tightly sealed container. This is the problem with the type of system Moonbear wants, if you leave the beans out on the counter the much of the flavor evaporates in just a few days.
Over the years I have had many different types of coffee grinders (been grinding my own for nearly 30 years) The small hand held electric grinders are convenient but have the trouble that it is difficult to get a consistent grind day in and day out. I have worn out a couple of those. The lowest tech that I have had was an old hand mill that you held between your legs and turned the handle until all of the coffee was ground, this was slow, but did give a very consistent grind.
I see 2 styles of coffee grinders, there are mills and grinders. A grinder consists of a spinning blade that continues to grind the coffee finer and finer until you stop it. Coarseness of grind is determined by how long you run the grinder.
A mill is a single pass device the beans are crushed between metal (or I suppose stone) wheels once a bean has been crushed it is not processed again. The coarseness of grind is determined by the separation of the wheels.
It is my believe that a mill gives the most consistent grind, you find mills in the stores for grinding the bulk coffee. The biggest problem I have found with the home use mills (read cheap (~$50) ) is that they to not have much range in grind coarseness. The one I had ground fine and finer. I wanted a grind that was a bit courser then the coarsest setting.
Currently I have found Mill and brew system which seems work pretty well. It has a grinder system which does not over grind. It is a http://www.cuisinart.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi/en/item.cgi?item_id=DGB-600BC which grinds then brews. I but in water and whole beans get out a passably good cup of coffee. The grinder has a exit screen and as the coffee reaches a size that is able to pass through the screen it is blown out of the grinder into the brewing basket. So in a since, it is similar to a mill that it cannot over grind the beans.
As someone mentioned above, a good cup of coffee in a French press requires about 2 tablespoons (not sure of the metric equivalent!) of coffee per cup. Actually this is about the ration you want no matter what process you use, the trouble of course is that, that is quite a lot of coffee. I am generally to cheap to go the ideal amount and brew weaker pots, the best flavor comes with a full strength cup of coffee, just making it strong enough covers a lot of sins.
Ivan, I did not think you brewed a bad cup of coffee, I thought is was pretty good. Put then I am to practical to be a purist!