Coffee on the go: brewing a great cup in less-than-ideal conditions
Taking coffee — and a few other things — on a trip
Before beginning our morning coffee ritual in the fresh air and enjoying the laid-back mood of a spring holiday, we first have to transport the coffee to our “wild base” under canvas. That is easy enough if we travel by car and only have fifty metres to walk from the car park to the tent. It is rather harder if Andrew has challenged our pride and we are pushing towards Morskie Oko, stuck in a human traffic jam and panting for a sip of liquid caffeine. Coffee in a backpack has weight, and so does the equipment needed to prepare it. Before setting off, think about the conditions you will be staying in, how you will get around and how much time you can actually devote to your morning extraction ceremony.
Whole beans or ground coffee?
Our first dilemma is what form the coffee should take. Fresh beans straight from Nicaragua, clever single-use sachets or beans thoughtfully ground at home before leaving? Naturally, the less work on a day off, the better. Why not grind the coffee before the trip and simply brew it later? That may sound tempting, but not to true caffeine diehards, who love waking up and warming their muscles before their first kilometres on the bike by grinding their favourite beans and annoying the neighbours in the next tent. Seriously, though: choosing beans also means carrying a grinder, but in our experience, spilled coffee is much easier to pick out of a backpack when it has not been ground into fine powder...
Ground... but with what?
Using an electric coffee grinder in camping conditions is hard to imagine, so take a small, handy manual grinder on trips into the forest wilderness. The classic Hario Slim Plus fits into almost any bag, grinds evenly and quickly, and is easy to clean. No wonder we always squeeze one into our backpack, right next to...
...the brewing gear
Our favourite equipment for making morning black coffee under canvas is, and always will be, a dripper. Why? First, pour-over coffee has more caffeine and simply does a better job of waking us up on a lazy holiday morning. Second, a dripper does not need a constant heat source under the vessel. That means no need to light a campfire at 6 a.m., something we definitely appreciate on holiday. Third, the method is simple and versatile enough for almost any conditions. Seriously: you can make a pour-over on the beach, in a storm-battered tent or even on the summit of Giewont. All you need is a dripper — for travel, we find the ordinary plastic Hario V60 classic works best — a vessel for the brew to drip into, and a filter for it to pass through.
Alternatives for the more demanding camper
Of course, not every coffee lover at a campsite belongs to the simple-dripper camp. You will also meet fans of the traditional moka pot and the handy AeroPress. Yes, both can be used outdoors, and both have plenty of followers. Some people even see advantages in them that an ordinary dripper cannot offer.
The AeroPress wins praise from people who want a concentrated, intense cup, but also from anyone keen to save backpack space. It is quite easy to find grinders sized to fit an AeroPress, even fitting inside the brewer itself! A moka pot, meanwhile, gives peace of mind to zero-waste enthusiasts: it needs no disposable filters, which can otherwise end up in the forest and take years to decompose.
Whichever camping coffee option you favour, remember that a holiday may be the only time of year when you can enjoy caffeine in such beautiful natural surroundings. So even if your morning coffee has a different extraction level and does not taste exactly as it normally does, simply enjoy finally being able to savour its perfectly imperfect aroma without rushing!