I was wondering why single serving coffee sachets never really took off the way tea bags have. The only explanation I could find was that steeping coffee too long makes the coffee taste bad, but it seems like that could be avoided by removing the bag.
Why would the end result be terribly different than a french press, Turkish brew, or cowboy coffee?
As a matter of fact, coffee is "commonly" sold in some kind of sachets.
In Japan, there is what is called "one-drip bag coffee". It consists of a flat sachet that you can unfold to deploy a small scaffold. The scaffold adapts to any mug-like cups. It unveils a filter containing ground coffee, as it unfolds. You just need to pour hot water in the filter to get a decent cup of coffee.
I will not link to any maker or brand, but most coffee dealers in Japan offer these bags---pretty convenient and offering a decent cup for the price. These bags seem somewhat popular in Japan.
I am not sure about global availability, though. Several countries do not sell them (e.g. Europe, perhaps because of the French / Italian influences).
Because coffee is an agricultural/baked item and like bread, goes stale. Between roasting, grinding packaging and shipping the bags, you'd ensure the coffee was never fresh and will never taste good. The most you may get is a mass produced cup of horrible that might be passable or better than nothing to a small percentage of people.
The other brew methods you list are generally used by people buying fresher, specialty coffee from shops. Those methods are all a bit more intensive and tend to be used by people a bit more picky that folks buying Folgers.
The method of brewing you describe is commonly known in Poland, Belarus, etc, as 'Turkish coffee', althought it's something very different from the actual 'Turkish coffee', because coffee is poured over by hot water, like tea, and not boiled afterwards.
In fact, many people use sprinkled tea instead of express tea (express tea, or sachet tea is usually of much poorer quality). But many people dislike that method because of grounds that must be manually removed before washing the cup.
The grounds of the coffee are very small grained, so they won't stop the sink, and I suppose it's the reason there's not so much demand on coffee sachets. Another one is the popularity of coffee machines, with nothing similar in the tea world.
The last reason that I see is, because coffee grounds are much smaller, it's technologically more challenging to prepare coffee sachets that would keep grounds inside. So they would be (and from I've heard actually are) much more expensive, and not so many people are eager to pay extra for them.
Holy smokes people! Been around for years and years. AMWAY sold it and it was a big hit. Superior Brand
Today, Folgers and other brands have sealed in foil coffee in bags.
Folgers Classic Medium Roast Coffee Singles Serve Bags. Decaff too.
and this curious contrivance...
I just made coffee in this manner using tea bags from some tea I did not care to drink. I made sure all the tea was out, I put in just over a teaspoon of the coffee i wanted ( I have no coffee maker at this time, they keep breaking even my good one) and then I sealed it back up, stapled it at the top just like the tea bag and added some milk and sugar and it tasted fine. You could add 3 tsp or a big table spoon if you want a stronger coffee! But I see that now, they probably would not sell as well. The trick to the coffee tasting fresh no matter how it is packaged is to keep it in your freezer. That is what I do.
There is also an alternative to a sachet, which is nevertheless functionally eqiuvalent, i.e., individual serving of instant (but true) coffee. Starbucks sells microground coffee in individual little bags, which is regular decent coffee, but it is so finely ground that it "dissolves" in the cup.
However, they only have it in "selected" countries -- e.g., I recollect seeing it in the USA and in Poland, but not in some other European countries.
Look everyone, the amount of coffee needed inside a tea bag in which to make a cup of coffee is very minimal. It will be thin-bodied. Notwithstanding the taste issue is merely the science of how hot the water is and how long the coffee needs to steep. Unlike a French press, the general properties needed for a tea filter bag to SEAL the coffee in requires a heat-sensitive sealant. The sealant used will clog the pores of the filter paper and you will never get enough coffee in the filter to make it taste decent while making it affordable. K Cups were designed to brew like drip coffee and have the cleanliness and convenience to replace the single tea bag coffee. It tastes way better and costs about the same.
I have also tried using coffee as in teabags but the brew is very weak. I just removed the tea and put in 5 gms of mild course coffee. I think the filter paper needs to very porous so that it can allow some fine solids to go into the brew. I am still trying until I get a solution because in my country this is the only way to improve coffee consumption.
Have you ever checked out Javazen's Brew Bags? These brew bags are literally coffee in a tea bag. They sell premium organic coffee mixed with tea. The tea reduces the acidity and helps brew a smoother cup of coffee. Ive been drinking Javazen for over 3 years now, and it wasn't until just this year that they launched the coffee tea bag - before the tea bag, they only sold their blends in loose grounds.
Edit:
After doing some more reading, it looks like Javazen was able to craft a quality coffee tea bag by creating a new tea bag "technology" that allows your coffee to brew more similarly to a french press.
I often purchase empty tea bags meant for brewing loose leaf tea to brew coffee on a trip. I push a chopstick or sommat through the top of the bag after filling to suspend it from the lip of the cup, pour hot water over, let it steep for a bit, and remove the bag. The flavor is lovely and robust.
Here is one brand, T-sac, but there are lots out there.
