The basic idea is the same: use hot water to pull the flavors and whatnot out of some plant matter. So why pour water right through coffee grounds but let tea steep for several minutes?
In: Chemistry
I make coffee by steeping the grounds dispersed in hot water for a couple of minutes, then filtering the result with a mesh filter. That’s almost exactly how you make tea in a pot, the only difference is the coffee filter is on a plunger in the pot and tea is traditionally filtered by pouring through a strainer into a cup.
The reason they don’t make coffee bags like tea bags is that coffee grounds pack more densely than tea leaves, so they really need to be dispersed through the water when steeping and filtered at the end, whereas tea leaves can infuse well enough contained in a paper bag.
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