ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Coffee filter

Hey there little buddy! Do you like coffee? Well, when we make coffee, we pour hot water over coffee grounds to make it tasty and strong. But we don't want the coffee grounds to end up in our cup, do we? That's why we use a coffee filter.

A coffee filter is like a little basket made out of paper. We put it in a coffee maker machine before we add the coffee grounds. The hot water flows through the filter, but not the coffee grounds, so it catches them and keeps them separate. Our coffee then drips out of the machine and into our cup, minus any little bits of ground up coffee beans.

It's like when you eat an orange, and you don't want to eat the seeds. You use a little strainer to keep them from getting in your mouth. The coffee filter does the same thing, but for coffee grounds. So, we can enjoy a nice smooth cup of coffee, without any of the gritty bits getting in the way. Ain't that just great?