3 Ways to Make a Coffee in Outdoor Activities

Nothing compares to the feeling of waking up in the wilderness. You feel the cool breeze, smell the fresh air, and hear the sounds of chirping birds. Like any other day, the only thing that can perk you up and warm you in the morning is a steaming coffee cup. But is it possible to brew a great cup while you’re camping out? As you would imagine, brewing the perfect cup will need some prep work, and some tools to take with you. 

Camping and outdoor activities can be exhilarating if you have good food and drinks with you. Outdoor junkies have been competing to come up with their culinary creations amid the limitations of being in the wild. The same can be said for brewing excellent coffee. In this article, we’ll teach you how to make a coffee while camping. These are three easy ways to have great tasting brews in your outdoor adventures without exerting too much effort! Let’s give it a go.

Cowboy Coffee

A simple way to make coffee requires some essential ingredients and items. You would need some coffee beans, pot, water, and a rock. Cowboy coffee tastes best when you use coarse grind beans smashed with a rock. This coffee is well-steeped so that finer grinds may lead to over-extraction and a bitter-tasting brew. 

Bring coarsely grind coffee beans on your trip or whole beans that you can crush with a rock at the camp. Boil water and let it cool for a couple of minutes. Then add the coffee into the pot. Let the grounds settle at the bottom. Pour the coffee sideways into your mug to leave the grounds in the pot. Drink delicately and avoid choking on the grounds. 

This is a perfect example of how to rough it up in the wilderness. However, you don’t have to suffer through bad coffee while you’re camping. You can always bring your favorite beans — even the premium ones and roast them over the fire if you desire. This adds a toasty and smoky flavor to the brew which somehow matches the forest scene. As mentioned earlier, you don’t need the fancy coffee grinders here. Most campers use rocks and grind their beans coarsely over a flat stone.

If you haven’t tried this method yet, do so at least once. We heard this is also what the military men do while on jungle training. The point of the matter is to be able to enjoy a hot and fragrant cup anywhere in the world you may be.

Pour-over Coffee

This method can be a bit time consuming, but you’ll get a well-made cup of pour-over to make up for the time. This can be achieved easily when you are car camping in the backcountry rather than out in still wilderness. 

The key to pour-over coffee is to have the right ratio of coffee weight and water. You will need 2 Tbsp of coffee per 6 fl oz or ¾ cup of ground coffee per 1 liter of water. It would be best if you also had a timer, a cone-shaped pour-over brewer, a paper filter that matches your pour-over-brewer water, mug, and stove.  

Make sure that you have the ideal ratio of coffee to water, which is 1:15. It would be best if you use a medium-coarse grind that you can prepare before going on your adventure. Boil water, then let it cool for 45 seconds to 1 minute. Set the filter in the cone and pour hot water to get rid of the paper taste. Dump the water, then start your pour-over timer. Slowly pour hot water into the coffee grounds, begin in the middle, and move outwards in a circular motion. Saturate the grounds evenly then wait for 4-8 seconds before continuing to pour the water onto the grounds. Make sure that you are pouring at the same rate that the coffee is coming out of the bottom. The process takes about four minutes to complete.  

The advantage of using this type of method is you get to enjoy the full aroma of your coffee. You also get to enjoy the sight of fresh coffee dripping slowly into your cup. It is calming and meditative. If your aim is to slow down, relax, and be mindful of your surroundings, making pour-over coffee is a great experience.

Instant Coffee

Our last option is more like a cheat for coffee lovers. Taking instant coffee on your backpacking, camping, and outdoor adventure if by far, the simplest, most lightweight option. It may not give you the same excellent brew taste of the other methods, but it gets the job done. You would need a few essential items to prepare a cup of instant coffee - water, pot, stove, and instant coffee mix. Just boil the water, pour into a cup, mix your instant coffee, and enjoy your view!

The good thing now is that there are plenty of instant coffee options available. You can bring sachet packs of coffee in different flavors or varieties. There’s plain black, coffee with milk, cappuccino blends, mochas, macchiatos and what-have-you. For campers who are minding their sugar intake, there are even sugar-free versions of instant coffee. Although, it is highly advisable to take sugar with your coffee when outdoors because you do expend a lot of energy. The sugar in your coffee would also help perk you up and prepare you for the long day of physical activity that lies ahead of you.

Coffee lovers have taken the art of coffee preparation into the outdoors with lightweight pots and items that you can take camping or backpacking. While some make do with the basics like cowboy coffee and instant mixes, others become more experimental and have taken pour-over-coffee art to the mountains! Some say the altitude affects flavors and aromas which is why they keep trying different blends and varieties while camped up high.

There are other ways to prepare coffee while outdoors; be creative, and enjoy great brews amid great views!