A Guide to Coffee in the Backcountry

Figure 1.A

I like good coffee. I have a Chemex, a Bialetti moka pot, three variously sized but mostly neglected French presses, my beloved Aeropress and even the new Aeropress Go. I like small coffee shops and local coffee roasters and I prefer to grind my own beans. But I'm no coffee snob. I buy most of my beans from Aldi and I actually like "bad" coffee. I like left-on-the-burner-all-day gas station coffee. I like that hot, brown, water Waffle House calls coffee. And I like Folgers-industrial-grade-teacher-work-room coffee. Whether pretentiously artisanal or strictly utilitarian, I just really like coffee.

Like many backpackers, alpinists, or dirtbag climbers coffee is an essential piece of gear. It fuels all of my outdoor pursuits. "No coffee. No sendee." (Is that on a shirt? It should be.) And, like many backpackers, alpinists, or dirtbag climbers, it can be difficult to enjoy a good, well-crafted cup of coffee that meets the utilitarian necessities of the backcountry.

Figure 1.B

For a long time backcountry coffee drinkers were faced with a series of trade-offs. Like economists, we were caught in an opportunity costs dilemma: a well balanced, silky smooth cup of java or a piping hot cup of bitter brown water. Good coffee was coffee at home or in town. Bad coffee was in the dirt, under a tarp, or from the back of a truck (Figure 1.B). This was the paradigm I inhabited for quite sometime as a snooty, snarky, ultra-light backpacking snob. As a mountain guide, a halfway decent cup of joe was mandatory to maintain sanity in the mountains with teenagers all summer. But it was dirtbagging around the American West, living out of my truck with the comfort of a two-burner camp stove, a moka pot, and a decent bag of beans that broke me out of the either-or binary and opened my eyes to the tasty potential of camp coffee.

Coffee is, after all, a fluid and should be thought of on a spectrum (Figure 1.A).

Circumstances often dictate where on the spectrum of artistry and utility your coffee falls. At the artistic end, Velo Coffee Roasters in Chattanooga will make you an Americano with espresso filtered back through an Aeropress before adding water. It is one of the finest things I have ever tasted. But as far as climbing is concerned, it isn't very utilitarian. On the utility end, you have the dregs of a Love's truck stop "house blend" pot somewhere in Missouri or Kansas. But between those two ends, there is a vast and fluid scale of artistry and utility and, I have learned, backpackers and alpinists and dirtbags don't necessarily have to give up one, artistry or utility, for the other. You can, at least to some degree, have both.

For example, it is easy to produce a delicious cup of coffee from the tailgate of a truck with a camp stove, a moka pot, and your favorite beans. Add some left over hot water you boiled to make oatmeal and you've got an Americano that will not only impress your climbing partner but also get them to have their morning constitution before you are about to tie in at the base of your project. The Aeropress is a delightful coffee travel companion because of its portability and versatility made only more-so by the new addition of the Aeropress Go. The original model already has a dedicated social media cult driven to post images of the Aeropress mid-brew on airplanes or beaches or mountain summits. More on the "Go" down below.

It is the ultra-light backpacking or 3:30 A.M. alpine start scenarios that often force us to sacrifice artistry and taste for utility and efficiency. I admit that in my more legalistic light and fast days on cold and starlit mornings in the Colorado Rockies, I would forgo the cup and bean all together and hustle down a couple espresso flavored energy gels instead. But this grotesque and troglodytic consequentialist behavior was an unnecessary trade-off imposed by a false sense of binary either/or choices. 

Once, in the Linville Gorge, my friend Russ and I filled two water bottles with water chilled in the North Carolina winter air and dumped in a packet of Folgers instant coffee each. Together, we pounded one and then stashed the other with a cache of cams while climbing 3,000 ft in a day. We'd stop, take a couple swigs, grab the gear we needed, and run to the next route. It may not have been technical cold brew steeped overnight by your local coffee shop, but it served its utilitarian purpose (and it didn't taste terrible either).

The Aeropress Go is a nice addition to this "light, fast, and delicious" category. I have taken mine bouldering and I am dying to take it backpacking. One push through the Aeropress Go can make three servings of espresso-like concentrate; add water to taste or inject it straight into your veins to jump start your central nervous system. However, I imagine that its weight (11.4 oz fully packed) will deter the ultra lightweight super zealots among us.

The MSR MugMate is, for me, and for Backpacker Magazine, the gold standard of taste and efficiency equilibrium. For efficiency, this little pour over weighs just .98 ounces, fits inside your cup, cleans easily, and makes little to no waste because it does not require a paper filter. For taste, it is what you make it. Pour over coffee allows you to experiment with the temperature and amount of water as well the roast and grind of the bean. The best brew is to bloom the coffee in boiled water for a few minutes and then pour it through the filter. Mmm! It's fast, light, efficient and tastes great too. My summers spent as a backpacking guide in Colorado were fueled by the MugMate and I stand by it. (The GSI Ultralight Java Drip is another lightweight option for delicious drip.)

A new trend in the Outdoor Industrial Complex, are artisanal instant coffees. Start ups like Kuju and Alpine Start market pre-packaged instant coffees marketed as "speciality grade" (Kuju) "that actually taste good" (Alpine Start). Alpine Start comes as a stir-in packet and Kuju as a disposable pour over. I picked up a handful of Kujus while trying to use up an REI gift card and I was unimpressed. It creates a lot of trash and at approximately $2.50 per serving you'd be better off with literally any other option.

Figure 1.C

Figure 1.C illustrates various camping coffee options rated on multi-axis scale: more efficient to less efficient and more tasty to less tasty.  Efficiency is determined by ease of brewing, pack-a-ability, weight, and waste. Taste is relatively subjective, but it remains an objective truth that the french press sucks (this includes the ESPRO travel press, GSI Java Press).  There is almost always a better option available than the French Press.

While the french press may be nice for brewing for groups, I find it bulky to pack, difficult to clean, and the coffee just too dang weak. The coffee to water ratio, for me, is too wasteful. If you want it to taste remotely more powerful than Waffle House, its coffee to water ratio must be astronomical. A youtube video swears you can brew a tasty, silky, balanced cup but it takes upwards of nine minutes! Which is nice for a rainy Saturday at home but won't cut mustard if you're trying to beat the crowds to the Valhalla Wall at Ten Sleep. Finally, LNT clean up is a chore, especially when compared to the moka pot or Aeropress. I reserve the right to be wrong about everything but I will not be convinced otherwise.

Figure 1.D

 Lastly, Figure 1.D ranks various camp-coffees with more value placed on efficiency than taste. This scale is useful for the ounce counters -- be they alpinists or ultralight backpackers. Since taste ought to be king, it is given more weight (10 pts) but ease of brew, weight, packability,  and waste account for twice as many points. Under this ranking system, GU espresso pouches score higher than my beloved moka pot while the Aeropress Go outscores the MSR Mugmate by a point.

Camp coffee isn't your granddad's Ozark Trail blue enamel percolator anymore. And while Sam Elliot-style cowboy coffee may be a crucial skill, backcountry coffee doesn't have to be that either.