Coffee in a Teapot

Making coffee in a teapot is one of the oldest ways to brew it: put ground coffee in a warm pot, pour on hot water, let it steep, then strain it into cups, exactly as you’d make loose-leaf tea. It’s the same principle as a French press, without the plunger. In the 1700s it was the fashionable alternative to boiling coffee, and by the early 1900s, steeping coffee in a china jug was an everyday habit in American homes, one Ukers calls “an English heirloom”. If you’ve got a teapot and a strainer, you’ve got a coffee maker. Here’s how, with a recipe from 1921.

The short version

• A rounded tablespoon per cup, plus one for the pot.
• Medium-coarse grind, so the strainer catches it.
• Water just off the boil, about 85 to 93°C.
• Steep about 5 minutes, lid on.
• Strain through a tea strainer, muslin or paper, or lift out the infuser.

How do you make coffee in a teapot?

Steps 2 to 5 follow the steeping rules in the 1921 booklet Coffee and Coffee Making, issued by the American Joint Coffee Trade Publicity Committee and quoted by Ukers in All About Coffee:

1. Warm the pot with hot water, and pour it away.
2. Add a rounded tablespoon of coffee for each cup, “or, as some cooks prefer to remember it, a tablespoonful for each cup and ‘one for the pot’”: the same rule people use for tea.
3. Pour on freshly boiled water, and stir.
4. Steep for five minutes “or longer, according to taste”.
5. Strain through muslin or cheesecloth, or settle the grounds with a dash of cold water, and serve straight away.

The booklet used medium grind for steeping. I’d go a touch coarser, medium-coarse, if you’re pouring through an ordinary tea strainer, so fewer fine grounds slip through.

How hot should the water be?

Not quite boiling. Ukers reports that in 1921, Professor S. C. Prescott of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology told the National Coffee Roasters Association that coffee made with water at 185 to 200°F (about 85 to 93°C) was preferable to coffee made at a full boil: it kept the fine flavours and was freer from bitter, astringent ones. In practice, that means letting the kettle rest for a moment after it boils.

Which teapot works best?

Prescott’s report also ranked the best materials for coffee-making utensils, in order: glass, including porcelain and other vitrified ware, then aluminium, nickel or silver plate, copper and tin plate. Two centuries earlier, Broadbent preferred a pot of stone or silver, “much better than tin or copper”.

• Glazed china or porcelain is ideal, and it rinses clean.
• A teapot with an infuser basket makes straining easy: lift the basket out when the time’s up.
• Glass lets you see the coffee steep.

I’d avoid using an unglazed clay teapot that you also use for tea: unglazed clay is porous, and coffee oils would linger.

Using an infuser basket

Many teapots have a removable mesh basket. Coffeexplore’s guide to brewing coffee in a tea infuser gives these pointers:

• Use a medium-coarse grind, the same as for a French press. Fine coffee over-extracts, tastes bitter, and leaks through the mesh.
• Use a fine mesh. Coffee grounds are generally finer than loose-leaf tea, so a coarse tea mesh lets them through.
• Steep 3 to 4 minutes in water just off the boil, around 93°C.
• Rinse the basket straight away, and brush the mesh, because coffee oils build up over time.

Where does teapot coffee come from?

When	What	Source
1670s to 1680s	England’s first teapots and coffee pots look almost identical; a 1681 silver coffee pot in the V&A closely matches a 1670 teapot	Ukers, quoting Charles James Jackson
1722	London coffee merchant Humphrey Broadbent condemns boiling coffee and urges infusing it: pour boiling water on the coffee and “let it stand to infuse five minutes”	Ukers
By 1760	In France, steeping has generally replaced boiling	Ukers
1921	The American coffee trade publishes its steeping rule: a tablespoon per cup and “one for the pot”	Ukers
1922	Ukers notes that steeping in a china or earthenware jug, “an English heirloom”, is common in American homes	Ukers

Broadbent’s dose was generous: he couldn’t “conceive how you can put less than two ounces of powder to a quart, or one ounce to a pint of water”. That’s about 28 g to 570 ml, or roughly 1:20. Ukers describes the jug method of his own day: boiling water poured on the coffee until the jug is half full, a brisk stir, the rest of the water, another stir, then a rest to settle before pouring through a strainer or filter cloth.

General guidance only. Take care with boiling water, and let a hot teapot cool before washing it.

Coffee in a teapot vs other methods

• French press: the same steeping, with a mesh plunger.
• Mason jar coffee: steep in a jar, hot or cold, then strain.
• Cowboy coffee: coffee boiled in a pot, the method Broadbent argued against.
• Cloth filter pour-over: for straining through cloth, the old way.

Explore every immersion method in the immersion chapter.