If you have a burned taste to your coffee it is because you have left it on the stove for too long. As long as there is still water in the bottom part (and you don’t put it on a to large fire, so the flames stay beneath the pot) it is physically impossible to heat up to more than 100 degrees celsius. For this reason the pipe through which the water is pressed up doesn’t extend all the way to the bottom, so some water will stay in the bottom part.
If you leave it on the stove after the brew is done, the water evaporates and the pot will heat up over 100 °C.
Once a pot has heated up too much the taste will be spoiled. You’ll need to thoroughly scrub it clean. And even then it will take 10s of brews before the taste returns no ‘not burnt’. And you’ll need to replace the gasket.
Also, when you remove the pot from the fire, the steam in the bottom part will cool. This causes it to suck a bit of coffee back from the grounds into the bottom. It is best to throw this out immediately, because if you leave it in it will give an ‘old coffee’ taste to the bottom part. Which will especially burn you if you ever forget to take it off the stove 
If you don’t burn your pot and you rinse the bottom part after each brew, it will brew very nice coffee (imho off course).
Never liked french press. Too much coffee grounds in the brew.
