I know for a fact that I’m not the only coffee snob that travels for a living! Let’s be honest, hotel coffee is very rarely any good. If the hotel provides it downstairs in the mornings, it usually tastes pretty watery. There’s almost always a small coffee maker in your room too, but these are almost never accompanied by decent coffee. In fact, most of the time it’s probably kinda stale. Therefore, the best way to get a solid morning cup is to just bring the tools to make it with you. Lucky for us, there are a ridiculous number of gizmos and gadgets out there that make traveling with coffee quite easy.
Down the Coffee Rabbit Hole
The desire to bring good coffee on the road started when I began my airline training. I figured hot water would be easy enough to source, so I just brought my French press along. Unfortunately it broke halfway through training, so I had to think of something else lest I be stuck with hotel coffee. I came to the conclusion that the AeroPress would fit the bill nicely. I did an article sometime back about why it's the best coffee maker for travel. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a small coffee press that works like a syringe. You set the AeroPress on top of your mug, pour your ground coffee into the chamber, and then pour the water in. Once you’ve let it steep for a bit, you plunge the coffee through a filter at the bottom. I like a pretty stout cup, so I typically will pour the water in and let it steep for a few minutes while I get ready for the day, and then I press the coffee. You can also do it upside down where you set the AeroPress down on the plunger with the filter at the top. Pour your coffee and water in and let it soak for the desired amount of time, and then flip it over and plunge into your cup. This method keeps coffee from moving through the filter before you are ready to plunge, and it’s the way I do it. Just be careful when flipping it over so that the press doesn’t come apart!
Cleaning it is even easier than making coffee with it. The plunger compresses the grounds into a small puck so you can just take the filter cover off and pop the grounds out into the trash can. I’ll rinse and dry off the pieces and throw it back in my bag.
Taking It Up Another Notch
Here’s where we can get even more nerdy (as if it wasn't already). Some folks will be perfectly satisfied with bringing something like the AeroPress or a French press and some ground coffee. They’ll get their hot water from a hotel microwave or a coffee maker, and that’ll be that. However, others might want to step up their game a little more. One of the best ways to do this is to bring along freshly ground coffee, or even whole bean coffee and a hand grinder so you can grind beans on the go. In its whole bean form, coffee goes stale slower than if it’s ground. So, bringing coffee that you ground up at home before the trip is certainly better than buying a bag of pre-ground coffee. That being said, coffee begins to lose its flavor and aroma almost immediately after it’s been ground. So, if you’re grinding the coffee up right before you make it, you’re going to have a better cup than if you were to pre-grind your coffee. The hand grinder I use actually fits inside my AeroPress, so it takes up almost no additional space.
Taking It Up... More Notches
I bet you thought we couldn’t get any more nerdy, but we’re gonna! The best way to get a consistent cup of coffee is to measure out how much water and how much coffee to use for each cup with a scale. For example, when I do a pour-over, I like to use 20g of coffee with 300g of water. For the Aeropress, I like 15g of coffee with a full reservoir of water (about 250g). As long as I keep the temperature of the water roughly the same (my kettle at home has a thermometer), I get an absurdly consistent cup of coffee. So if you want to take your coffee game to the next level on the road, pack a small scale with you. There are ways to keep things consistent without a travel scale though. If you have a hand grinder, you could measure out your desired amount of coffee on a scale, fill the grinder, and make a small mark on the outside of your grinder where the beans fill to and you’ll know exactly where to fill it. Just remember that the level of roast will affect how much the beans weigh. In other words, dark roasts are lighter in weight than light roasts because they’ve lost more moisture. The origin of the bean will affect this too. So, if you vary the type of roast you drink, there will be varying weights associated with the mark on the outside. As far as water goes, it’s pretty easy to stay consistent by simply filling up the water to about the same spot every time in whatever you use to brew your coffee.
Something worth mentioning is the source of the water and the cups you use. I'm surprisingly not very picky about water, so as long as I'm not out of the country I usually just fill up water from the sink and call it good. Alternatively, one could fill up a reusable water bottle at a drinking fountain or water station and use that as well. You could use water bottles in a pinch, but it's not the most environmentally friendly option.
Just about every hotel I’ve stayed at has had a coffee maker inside the room. Most hotels I’ve stayed at have also either had a microwave in the room or at least one in the lobby or a common area. Either of these can be used for hot water, but the microwave is the better of the two options. There have been studies done on hotel coffee makers, and… well let’s just say they’re not always exactly the cleanest environments. I will admit that I used them for hot water until I found out that collapsible electric kettles exist. This is a particularly good way to bring along a clean way to boil water, and if you bring freeze dried food with you or other foods like oatmeal and tea, you get the added benefit of being able to use the kettle for other stuff as well. As far as cups go, I don't bring a portable coffee cup with me simply to save on space; I just use the paper cups that are available in hotel rooms and hope that there’s a lid. Just be careful with these cups; sometimes they can't go in the microwave! I once missed the DO NOT MICROWAVE warning on a cup and was greeted by a most unpleasant smell about 30 seconds later. Thankfully I didn't set off any smoke alarms!
Bean Storage
How about transporting the beans? I’d be willing to bet that a good number of you will be perfectly happy with putting your coffee in a ziplock bag and calling it good. I personally like to use a small container that seals up and creates a vacuum. It fits nicely inside the water bottle pouch on my food bag, and it holds plenty of coffee for several days along with some extra for anyone who wants to try it. You’d be surprised at how quickly coffee will start to stale, and I’ve never liked plastic bags because they impart a flavor on whatever is inside them after about a day. But admittedly my taste buds are sensitive to that sort of thing.
Tea Too!
Tea is not something I’ve dabbled in a whole lot, but I do like the occasional cup. I keep a few bags of black and herbal tea with me in my bag because it’s easy and you never know when you might want a cup because of a scratchy throat or something. Loose leaf tea can absolutely be brought along as well; there are probably as many gadgets for tea as there are for coffee. The storage principle is the same; keep it in an airtight container for maximum freshness.
Why Bother?
I'm sure most people will wonder why I even bother with all of this, particularly while I'm out on the road. Firstly, coffee is one of my hobbies and I enjoy the act of making it along with the precision that can be integrated into the process. Secondly, the routine of making a good cup of coffee while I’m on a trip is like bringing a slice of home out on the road. Lastly, thanks to Matt D'Avella's video, I realized that focusing on the act of making coffee every day can be a practice in both mindfulness and patience. While making the coffee, I'm focusing on each of the steps in the process which means that I am absorbed in the present moment. I'm not thinking about how to improve my landing from yesterday or the upcoming busy flying day I'm about to start. I'm only focused on making a great cup of coffee, and I'm not in a hurry to get through the steps required to make it.
Conclusions
I honestly had way too much fun writing this one, so hopefully it gives you some insight on making great coffee on the road! I'm sure some of you will be interested in some of the gear I've mentioned. I didn't want to blow up this article with links to gear everywhere, so I set up those links to the gizmos and gadgets I use to make my coffee on this page here. Obviously all of it takes up precious real estate within luggage, but the enjoyment I get out of making a great cup of coffee makes it more than worth it.
Pro Tip: if you prefer to just purchase your coffee and you’re a crew member on duty, buy it before you go through security. Lines are never as long because no one else can buy a coffee and walk through security with it! I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that utilizing all of the apps that companies like Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts put out can save you money if you’re racking up points.
Notes
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