Our Favorite Ways to Brew Coffee While Camping

An old adage of the backcountry is that everything tastes better when you’re camping. Somehow even a bag of freeze-dried food you poured boiling water into just 5 minutes before hits the spot with nature as its backdrop. Coffee is no different, and if you ask us, has a leg up on rehydrated beef stroganoff. Here are some of our favorite ways to brew a delicious cup of coffee while camping.

AeroPress

The AeroPress brewer has a lot of advantages when it comes to brewing out on the trails: it's compact, durable, and versatile, with any number of different recipes you can wow your fellow campers with. It’s also in the full-immersion family of brewers, which means you don’t need the precision of a gooseneck kettle – the less packing the better! And better yet, they’re easy to clean and make relatively little mess to clean up. We love James Hoffman’s go-to AeroPress recipe, which you can find here.

French Press

Similar to the AeroPress, French presses are full-immersion brewers, so you don’t need to take up valuable space in your backpack or luggage with a gooseneck kettle. Additional benefits of a French press are that they can brew enough coffee to caffeinate at least a few campers at once, and they brew an especially robust cup that will invigorate you for the day ahead. We recommend pre-weighing out your coffee at home, so you don’t need to bring a scale with you!

Cold Brew

The most low-fuss of all ways to enjoy coffee while camping is making a batch of cold brew before you go. To take up less room in the cooler, keep the cold brew as a concentrate and dilute with water or milk to serve. Cold brew is also a great afternoon pick me up to enjoy after a day’s worth of camp activities.