Can an Espresso Machine Be Used to Brew Tea? What Commonalities Do Coffee and Tea Share?

Tea and Coffee: Similarities in Extraction Methods

Tea and coffee, as two globally popular beverages, have significant differences in their cultural backgrounds and drinking experiences, yet they share many commonalities. For instance, both require water as a solvent to extract specific compounds. This leads to many similar extraction methods between them, such as steeping, drip brewing, and boiling.

Although the operational forms may differ, most extraction methods are applicable to both. That's why FrontStreet Coffee believes that many coffee enthusiasts have wondered during their long coffee-drinking journey: "Can tea leaves be put into a coffee machine to extract a concentrate?"

Understanding Espresso Extraction

As we all know, espresso machine extraction methods differ from conventional ones. With the addition of pressure-assisted extraction, it can "completely" dissolve flavor compounds from coffee in the shortest time using the least amount of water. Due to the minimal "solvent" (water) in the "solution" (coffee), the coffee concentration is extremely high.

With its extremely high concentration, espresso can serve as a base for various specialty coffees. Its addition not only doesn't dilute the drink's texture but also allows the coffee flavor to shine through in the beverage. Since tea and coffee share the same extraction essence, could tea also achieve extremely high concentration through pressurized extraction in a coffee machine?

Extracting Tea Concentrate with a Coffee Machine

Undoubtedly, the answer is yes, as explained by FrontStreet Coffee above. However, due to essential differences, we cannot completely apply coffee extraction logic when extracting tea with a coffee machine. So today, FrontStreet Coffee will share how to extract a "concentrated" version of tea using a coffee machine.

How to Extract Tea "Concentrate" with a Coffee Machine?

First, we need to understand that simply stuffing tea leaves into a portafilter won't produce high-concentration tea. Because the gaps between tea leaves are too large, the coffee machine cannot build pressure, and the extracted tea would only be slightly stronger than brewed tea. If we want to create a high-concentration version of tea using a coffee machine, we first need to grind the tea leaves. Like coffee beans, they follow Fick's law of diffusion: the rate of substance release is directly proportional to the contact area. Therefore, to quickly extract compounds from tea leaves, we need to increase their water contact surface area through grinding.

Since FrontStreet Coffee was also trying this for the first time, we started with the finest grind on the Ek43 and a single portafilter to avoid waste. For tea, we chose aged white tea because it was the only type available in the shop, hidden away in a cabinet. As FrontStreet Coffee mentioned earlier: we cannot completely apply coffee extraction logic when extracting tea. This is because most tea leaves expand more than three times in size when in contact with hot water, so we need to appropriately reduce the amount when using a coffee machine for extraction. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee used these parameters for this extraction: 10g of tea leaves, ground at Ek43 setting 0.

The tea "particles" ground at setting 0 were extremely distinct, and after simple tamping, we could lock the portafilter into the coffee machine for extraction!

As you can see, the extraction flow was very fast, extracting 100ml of tea in less than 20 seconds. Although the tea color was much darker than usual brewed tea, this clearly didn't meet our goal, so the grind needed to be even finer. Since setting 0 was already the limit for this Ek43 in our shop, FrontStreet Coffee switched to an espresso grinder. The tea amount remained unchanged, while the grind setting was adjusted from Ek43's setting 0 to Galileo Q18's setting 1.2, which FrontStreet Coffee had found to be the optimal grind for today's "Warm Sun" blend this morning.

As expected, the unexpected happened. Due to the espresso grinder's small bean inlet, larger flaky tea leaves couldn't enter and thus couldn't be ground. However, this isn't without solution - we first manually crushed the tea leaves before pouring them into the grinder. So, all customers visiting this morning witnessed FrontStreet Coffee's embarrassing scene of pulling tea leaves out of the grinder.

After some hassle, the tea leaves were finally ground successfully. Compared to the Ek43 grind, it was indeed much finer - truly impressive for an espresso grinder. Again, after simple tamping, we began extraction. (Customer friend: "Guess why a grinder is called a 'bean' grinder")

This time, the flow rate was indeed much slower than the previous extraction. However, it could only be compared to the previous one, as this extraction of 100ml of tea took 30 seconds with a pressure of about 6 bar. Although the tea color was darker than before, it was clear that this tea's concentration still hadn't met our requirements. So, based on experience, FrontStreet Coffee adjusted the grind five settings finer at once. (Left is the first extraction, right is the second)

This time, we finally achieved a relatively ideal tea grind, as the tea particles were visibly very fine just from appearance. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee directly switched from the single portafilter to a 20g double portafilter, and the tea amount was increased to 18g.

As expected, this extraction did proceed in the direction FrontStreet Coffee had envisioned. The flow rate was slow, the pressure gauge rose to 10 bar, and we could see obvious "crema" (which is actually foam). Because tea differs from coffee, FrontStreet Coffee set the ratio to 1:3.5 here, extracting 63ml of tea from 18g of tea leaves. As the tea leaves gradually infused, the flow rate became slower and slower. When the time reached 32 seconds and the liquid weight approached the target, FrontStreet Coffee ended the extraction.

Testing the Tea Concentrate

Needless to say, just from the appearance of this tea, we can see it has a very high concentration due to its deep color.

FrontStreet Coffee took a small spoonful to taste - this tea indeed had a concentration comparable to espresso. Then, because tea differs from coffee, even without deliberate extraction control, it wouldn't show over-extraction characteristics like sharp acidity or burnt bitterness, at most some astringency (which could also be extracted multiple times). Like espresso, such a high-concentration tea isn't suitable for direct consumption by most people. So FrontStreet Coffee made it into "tea latte" by adding milk (essentially milk tea, but using a tea base with the same high concentration as espresso, borrowing from the concept of "tea cappuccino"), with a ratio of 1:6, meaning 30ml of tea with 180ml of milk, making one cold and one hot version.

Whether cold "tea latte" or hot, FrontStreet Coffee can say the taste is impeccable! Because the tea concentration was high enough, even with so much milk added, the tea flavor wasn't masked. The texture was rich, the taste balanced and aromatic - truly excellent! This might also be thanks to FrontStreet Coffee's "timely damage control" - not over-extracting prevented this tea from having too prominent astringency.

Conclusion and Recommendations

In summary, we can know that a coffee machine can extract a high-concentration cup of tea. However, FrontStreet Coffee doesn't recommend directly using coffee grinders and coffee portafilters for making "concentrated tea." Because cleaning the grinder after grinding tea leaves is very troublesome, and due to the very fine particles, a lot of tea dust bypasses the portafilter and seeps into the tea, affecting the taste. Even worse!! Most of the portafilter holes get clogged, requiring careful flushing to clean thoroughly! It's really very troublesome!

So, if everyone wants to try this, FrontStreet Coffee recommends being mentally prepared. Alternatively, purchase professional tea extraction tools, so you won't end up in the embarrassing situation of post-extraction chaos due to a moment of impulse. (Finally, FrontStreet Coffee does not serve, does not serve, does not serve this at our store~)

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