Individual Serving Tea Bags and Coffee Bags Tutorial

 

This tutorial will show how to make your own single serve tea bags and coffee bags from loose leaf teas and ground coffee.

There are two different ways to make the bags. The one of the left, uses a quarter of a coffee filter. The one of the right basically uses one whole filter. The idea behind the one on the right is to utilize as much water flow as possible for the tea or coffee.

The first part of the tutorial will show how to make the bag on the left. The last part of the tutorial will show how to make the bag on the right.

Start with ¼ of a coffee filter.

Fold in half.

Sew the sides together. Remember to back stitch at the beginning and the end or your leaves and grounds may work their way out.

Trim off excess thread. Fill with your coffee or tea. Fold the top corners down.

Fold the remaining top down about ¼ of an inch. Then fold again.

Sew the top in place remembering to back stitch at the beginning and the end. Do NOT cut the string. It will be used to connect the paper so you know what is in the bag.

Pull the string about three inches. Do NOT cut. Place a square of paper under the presser foot. Zig Zag so the paper is now attached to the bag. I do not back stitch the label paper. There isn’t a lot of stress on it and if it falls off after the bag is in my cup, I already know what was on it.

Now cut the thread and write the contents of the bag on the square of paper.

For the rectangular bags, sew a tube by folding the filter in half and sewing a straight line about two inches from the fold.

Trim off the excess paper filter.

You should have something that looks like the photo above.

Roll the paper so the seam is on the top and fold to flatten.

Fold in half so the seam is on the outside.

About half an inch on both sides of the fold, fold the filter back over the seam. You should now have the seams on the inside facing each other. This will allow the water to flow better and allow your tea leaves to expand for better infusion.

Fill one side of the bag with tea or coffee. You can fill both sides if you want a stronger brew which means double the amount of tea or coffee that you add.

Fold the top (open end of the tea bag) corners down like in the photo.

Fold the remaining straight top edge down so it meets the bottom of the triangle folds.

Fold the whole section over again.

Sew the top in place. Remember to back stitch at the beginning and the end. Do NOT cut, yet. Pull the bag so that it is about three inches from the sewing foot. Sew a piece paper under the foot so that it is now connected to the tea bag.

You should have something that looks like the above photo. Trim off any excess threads. I tend to do this on the bag, but not the paper. Write the contents of the bag on the paper. 

This is what your finished tea bag should look like.

You can use any coffee filter that you would like. So spend as much as you would like or be as thrifty as you want.