Coffee bags

A coffee bag is ground coffee sealed inside a filter sachet, steeped in a mug of hot water like tea.

How good are they

Better than instant, by a wide margin, and below anything freshly ground. From a specialty roaster who nitrogen-flushes the packaging, they are genuinely pleasant — clean, recognisably origin-specific, and a real cup of coffee.

The limitation is freshness

Coffee is ground weeks or months before you steep it. Nitrogen flushing and sealed sachets slow the loss considerably; they do not stop it.

That is the whole difference between a bag and a brewer.

Getting the best from one

Water just off the boil, not boiling.

Steep three to five minutes, agitating once or twice — squeezing the bag at the end forces fines through and adds bitterness.

One bag per 200 ml. Two bags in a mug is better than one bag steeped twice as long.

Where they earn their place

Hotel rooms, offices, camping, and travel where a grinder is not practical. They occupy the niche that instant coffee used to own, and they do it far better.

The alternative

A drip bag — a small paper cone that hooks onto a mug — is a pour-over rather than a steep, and generally produces a cleaner cup. Same freshness limitation.