The AeroPress coffee maker is a magical little device. It’s simple, portable, super durable and extremely versatile.
You can brew all kinds of coffee with it depending on your tastes, and even use it to make espresso-style coffee.
It allows you to control for an unmatched number of brewing variables, from grind size to water temperature and coffee-to-water ratio, all while still producing a cup of coffee far superior to drip coffee.
You can even use it to make yourself a cold brew!
So, Can You Use AeroPress For Tea? it’s perfectly reasonable to wonder if it’s possible to use the AeroPress for more than just brewing coffee.
In fact, brewing tea using AeroPress is a common curiosity and one that’s even gotten formal acknowledgment from AeroPress themselves.
So Can You Use AeroPress For Tea?
Yep! You totally can! AeroPress even writes about it on their official site.
There are some risks involved and some tricks to make it work well, but the short of it is that the AeroPress can effectively brew everything from green tea to your favorite herbal tea, and really any other tea you might want.
How to Brew Tea Using an AeroPress Coffee Maker
Making a delicious cup of tea in an AeroPress is just about as simple as making AeroPress brewed coffee.
If you already have loose tea leaves ready for brewing, it may even be easier as you won’t have to grind any coffee before you brew.
Use the Inverted Brewing Method
The key to brewing tea in the AeroPress lies in using the inverted method, which if you’re unfamiliar with definitely warrants learning a bit about we’ve got an [article all about it here anyway.
Caution: Be careful with your hot water
Be aware that the inverted brewing method—whether for coffee or tea—requires a bit more care and attention to avoid spilling hot water.
The AeroPress coffee maker is normally pretty stable on a counter, but when you use the inverted method to brew tea, you’re inherently increasing the chances of it tipping over.
Needless to say, this can cause injury, frustration, and a spoiled brew.
The risks are the same regardless of whether tea leaves or ground coffee are going into your AeroPress.
Step 1: Prepare Your Hot Water
Whereas depending on your preferences you may or may not bring your water to boil for coffee (and especially not for cold brew), you can boil water and then let it cool momentarily for use with tea.
Step 2: Set Up the AeroPress
Place the AeroPress onto your countertop. Put the plunger in slightly and then add your tea leaves into the brewing chamber.
Remember you’ll be using the inverted AeroPress method for this.
Step 3: Pour and Let Steep
Pour hot water over your tea leaves to saturate them fully in the brewing chamber.
You can give the mixture a good stir for a few seconds here to help the steeping process along.
Wait between 30 seconds and a few minutes, according to your preference while the tea leaves extract into the water.
Step 4: Prepare the Filter Cap
Affix your choice of either a paper filter or an AeroPress metal filter onto the filter cap and then properly screw it onto the body of the brewer.
A note on filters
AeroPress filters are a major variable for a lot of devoted AeroPress lovers.
Some love the benefits of using AeroPress paper filters, while others will only ever use a metal filter.
We’ve got our own thoughts about them and outline the pros and cons of all your options in this article.
For now though, note that a paper filter will trap a lot more oil than a metal one, which has an effect on flavor some people find more noticeable than others.
You may or may not find this significant when brewing tea.
Step 5: Invert and Press
Here’s where the spill risk is highest. To use the inverted method, you now flip the whole setup over onto your coffee cup.
Other coffee makers are a lot more hands-off, but therein lies the fun and flexibility of an AeroPress.
Once flipped and properly aligned, go ahead a push that plunger down firmly just as you would to make a cup of AeroPress coffee.
Step 6: Enjoy!
If you’ve done everything right, the result should be a delicious cup of tea made right inside your AeroPress coffee maker.
Don’t Fret over loose-leaf tea
Some people starting out using theirs this way struggle a bit keeping loose-leaf tea leaves out of their mugs, but we find practice makes perfect here.
While loose-leaf tea is recommended for use in the AeroPress, you can always give tea bags a try to easily contain those rogue tea leaves.
Other Options For AeroPress Tea
Milk or Other Additions
At the end of your brew, you can spice up your tea just like you might if you brewed it in an electric kettle or via any other brewing method.
A splash of cold milk in a fresh cup of green tea is a personal favorite that also helps the tea cool down just the right amount for immediate consumption.
Add milk to your cup after the brew though.
Don’t put it into the chamber with the loose leaf and water before pressing the plunger on your AeroPress.
Cold Brew Tea
Just like with coffee, you can use your AeroPress to make iced or cold brew tea.
You’ll need to increase your steeping time by a significant factor, or you can try applying one of our recommended methods for cold brewing coffee to a batch of tea.
Using the Original Method
It’s not recommended, and we’re not sure what the benefits would be, but technically yes, you could likely use the original (non-inverted AeroPress method) to make tea.
Steep time would be awfully low and the result would probably be pretty disappointing, which is why the inverted method is pretty much universally recommended.
Found Some Unique Tips or Tricks for Brewing AeroPress Tea?
Share them with us here!
As you may have guessed by our name, our real passion is coffee.
We’ll make the occasional cup of black tea or strong green tea once in awhile, but we’re when we tinker with our AeroPress, our coffee is usually the subject of our experiments.
So if tea is your go-to brewed beverage, let us know how we might improve our technique when you discover a tweak that makes a difference.
Try our Bulletproof coffee recipe using an AeroPress here.