Why don’t we make drip tea or steep coffee? A look at the history and science behind different tea and coffee brewing methods.
| Channel | Publish Date | Thumbnail & View Count | Actions |
|---|---|---|---|
 Ali Abdaal | 2023-03-20 17:00:32 |  938,697 Views |
The BEST way to make coffee
Serious Mealtimes / Vicky Wasik
The biggest difference between where I keep my teaware and where I keep my coffee equipment is limescale. My coffee cupboard is constantly overflowing with products: ceramic pour-over cones a plunger brewer designed by a frisbee magnate various grinders a Danish dip pot with a neoprene jacket and so on. My tea drawer on the other hand has only three brewers: a glass pot with a filter a clay pot with a handle and a fine mesh screen and a ceramic bowl with a lid called a gaiwan. These all rely on the same basic method: steeping.
Why is tea made so consistently while the market is brimming with different coffee-making products? The simple answer is that tea production is a centuries-old practice in China Taiwan and Japan with long-standing quality ideals that apply to agricultural processing and brewing.* In short tea is well thought out. Coffee on the other hand has been grown for most of its commercial life in Central and South America East Africa and Indonesia primarily to be shipped to North American and European markets; it's an export crop whose consumers have long prioritized low cost and high caffeine content. Only in the last few decades has the specialty coffee industry been able to focus on quality at every stage of the process from farm to cup which means that the same industry is still refining new ways to make coffee every year. (For more on that topic I recommend James Hoffmann's The World Atlas of Coffee.)
