Making Coffee Outside

Ever so often, the need to make coffee outside of the home arises. This could be a backpacking trip, bicycle tour, a regular camping trip, or a quick morning adventure to the top of a mountain or similar.

It's important then, to have something easily packed and light weight to take with you. In my case, that includes the following items:

• A titanium backpacking pot
• Alcohol stove - made from an aluminum can
• Kalita Wave dripper and filter
• Mug
• Coffee

My brewing setup, on it's maiden voyage in the backyard.

This combination has now seen two Sub-24 Hour Overnight bike trips and a backpacking trip. It works well. The stove nests in the mug, and the mug in the pot. From there, an aluminum foil windscreen, and lighter also get added to the pot.

As for the coffee, I usually try and pre-grind enough before the trip, especially if the trip will be short or if you'll be backpacking and trying to minimize the weight. For a long bike trip, and fresher coffee, a hand grinder can be packed as well.

Coffee Plant Roasters - Guatemala La Esperanza

This coffee should win an award. For what, you might ask? For the prize of being the first coffee to be posted to this blog while I'm still consuming it. Yay, give it a round of applause, it's earned it.

Anyways, this is another one from CPR, and the fourth from Guatemala. It comes from La Esperanza, in the Quetzaltenango department. I've got no facts about it. It's wikipedia pages are sparse, and most searches just bring up coffee roasters selling their wares. Though that does mean other people also consider it worth drinking.

Now, since I'm currently working my way through this bag of coffee, it'd be safe to say I have tasting notes of it. And...I don't. If nothing crazy stands out, it gets listed as "tastes like coffee." It also doesn't help that it is consumed at work, where my priorities are not detailed tasting notes, but, rather, work. Maybe I'll remedy this, maybe I won't. If I do, it'll end up being an edit at the end of the post.

Coffee Plant Roasters - Light Vienna

After a short break, we're back, and with stuff that, while still being consumed in the past, is certainly being consumed in a much more recent past.

The coffee here comes from Coffee Plant Roasters, still just as accessible by bike as it was before. However, as a bit of a changeup, this marks the first blend I've purchased from there. It's origins are listed as "Sumatra and our favorite Latin." Whether that means a blend of Latin's too, or a single favorite, that's up for debate.

Also up for debate, is their name and description. They've named it after a level of roasting, but then tell you it is only barely in that category. As a follow-up, it then gets described as a "medium to dark roast." So it's a light, medium, dark roast. Got it.

Since it's recent, and I remember something about the taste, I'll actually speak to that here. One flavor description CPR gave was earth. The first few days of drinking this, that earth tasted like dirt. That's not hyperbole. I guess I should just remember that earth = dirt, and shouldn't expect the flavor to be different. That being said, that flavor mellowed out (or became ignored) the further into the bag I drunk.