Coffee is a very important part of our lives and as with food, we feel there is no need to drop standards when camping. For a few years we were using a plunger, which is pretty standard for most people I think but it just was not close enough for me, I wanted something more.

I have bought coffee from our local roaster for years now and he showed me a few options that would work when camping. There are a lot of different ideas and gadgets out there, just google it, this post is not to explore those but to show you what we use.

I settled on an item called an Aeropress this is a plastic plunger type device with a filter and made by Aerobie, who also make some great camping toys! The idea behind it is that it extracts the coffee using pressure the same as your friendly barista does in the coffee shop down the road. Also because of the filter there is no grit like you get with the plunger coffee. Its easy to use and the coffee is a nice smooth finish and close to what you would expect out of a machine.

I also use a small hand grinder so I can take whole beans and have them ground freshly, much better tasting coffee with freshly ground beans. It does take a little longer to make a coffee but its all part of the process and if you are thinking you could just have an instant then this is not the info you need.

If you wanted a complete process you could think of roasting your own beans too, many roasters will sell you green beans. Using a frying pan like device called a HandyRoaster I had a go at the process myself. The roaster is easy to use and after a quick lesson you can get a nice finish to your beans. It does take a while and needs to be constantly moving, but hey you are camping what else is there to do.

Neli Coffee in Clontarf is my local roaster we are not associated with them we have just been customers and enjoying their coffee for many years now. http://nelicoffee.com.au/

Here is a pic from Vanuatu where we lived for a while, we could not take all of our camping gear but did take the necessities for a good coffee plus the local coffee there was excellent.