The evolution of (campfire) coffee

"Campfire and coffee, from a tin cup in my hand,

Sure warms the fingers when it's cold."

- from the song, "God Must Be a Cowboy at Heart," by Dan Seals, © 1983

We've come a long way from the days when "cowboy" coffee was a camper's only choice. While an occasional tin cup of that strong but gritty brew is fine, today's coffee-quaffing campers have almost as many choices on the trail as do city-dwelling caffeine hounds.

Cappuccinos up!

Cowboy coffee pots

While it might be considered "retro", you can still use this old method of throwing grounds in boiling water, then drinking (and often chewing!) the results. All you need are a black enamel pot, a campfire and ground coffee

There are different schools of thought about the best way to brew campfire or cowboy coffee. Add a handful of fresh grounds to a pot of cold water and boil it; or, boil it then add the grounds (my preferred method). Some campfire chefs throw in crushed eggshells - or even a whole egg! -  to help the grounds settle, but I've never subscribed to that.

Whichever method you choose, when the grounds sink, the coffee is ready.

Coffee, percolator style

When my regular camping partner tired (very quickly!) of my cowboy coffee on our early trips together, we switched to a percolator to keep the grounds out of the water.

The coffee is a-brewin'...

I remember this as the preferred method on all our family camping trips. Of course, my dad wasn't a cowboy and the cappuccino craze hadn't hit North America, then. The first percolators were made in 1825, so it is a tried-and-true method of coffee brewing.

The method is simple: fill the basket with coffee, the pot with water, boil it then percolate it until the coffee is as strong as you like it. You'll need to experiment to determine how long to percolate it to reach the desired strength.

Campers can "espresso" themselves

These hit the market in the early 1990s.  My partner still wasn't crazy about my camp coffee, so I bought this little device for her birthday one year. (She's never complained about my coffee since - or about any birthday present, either.)

Brewing with this set-up is similar to using a percolator: fill a basket with espresso-grind, fill the pot with water, then heat it until the coffee is forced up through the upper chamber and nozzle into your waiting cups. Once the brew is out, there is still enough steam coming from the nozzle to froth milk if you want to turn your espresso into cappuccino.

Who's up for camp espresso?

 This works best over a portable stove, or a Coleman stove, than a campfire. Place a cup (metal!) on the lid to catch the coffee before it starts coming out, because when it is ready, it comes out very fast!

Press-ing on to new coffee frontiers

So-called "French presses" or plunger pots became all the rage in homes about the same time campfire cappuccinos became available. Now they are available for camping, either as plunger pots or press/cup combinations, in which the press/plunger doubles as a lid.

The method is very simple: boil water, add it to grounds in the pot/mug, steep to the desired strength, then press the plunger down. Pour it into a mug, and voila! - a strong cup of java without grounds. Aficionados claim it is closer to a "true" coffee taste, although having chewed a few chocolate-covered coffee beans in my time, I can vouch it still doesn’t compare to the taste (or kick!) of a few of those caffeine-packed goodies.

Whatever method you choose, a drop or two of Bailey's always seems to make it go down even better.

To put you in the mood, I'll leave you with this music video by Jerry Vandiver, dedicated to those of us who really appreciate their coffee in camp.


It's tough to beat the scenery and ambiance of coffee enjoyed in the outdoors.

(A slightly different version of this was originally published in Coast Magazine, July 2001, B.C. edition)

Where in the world is YOUR favourite cuppa joe?

"Where is your favourite place to travel?"

Cups up! Campfire cappuccino.

As a travel writer, that's one of the questions constantly asked of me when I meet someone for the first time.

That's not what I'm writing about, though.

If you've ever wandered onto my Facebook personal page, you probably know how much I love coffee. And coffee culture. And trivia about coffee. Friends are constantly posting stuff about coffee onto my Timeline.

And, of course, people always like to know what my favourite coffee is, where is my favourite place to drink or purchase coffee, and - since I'm a travel writer - where is the best cup of coffee I've ever had.

That's easy.

The best cup of coffee I ever had was during my very first international trip (outside of Canada and the U.S.) in 1991.

Belize.

I remember it like it was yesterday.

It was our last day, we had an afternoon flight out of Belize City to LAX, then on to Vancouver.

For our last meal in the country, we decided to go for brunch at the Fort George Hotel.

From the first sip, we knew we'd stumbled on something exquisite. We were having coffee-gasms. Right there in the hotel dining room.

Several cups later, we finally came up for air, and asked our server what kind of coffee it was.

He smiled, and said, "Guatemalan chocolate coffee."

Even Nikki, our African grey parrot, loved Second Cup.
We never feed our birds caffeine, though.

Now it was not "flavoured" coffee; I'm not a fan of that type of coffee (yeah, I'm a purist). The "chocolate" was simply what it was called. It was rich, sweet, fragrant, smooth - and that was just the aroma. It almost didn't need cream or sugar.


After I returned home, I was on a mission to find a coffee as close to that coffee as I could. None of the Guatemalan coffees I tried came close, though. Then, eight months later, at a mall in Edmonton, I decided to grab a coffee at a Second Cup.

Now I'd never tried their coffees, since, at the time, I lived in Fort St. John, B.C. and there were no Second Cups, not even a Tim Horton's there, at the time. I looked at the menu, saw "Guatemalan" beside something called "Huehuetenango." So, I tried it.

Bingo!

While it wasn't exactly what I'd had in Belize, it was the closest I'd ever come. Or ever would come: Sweet, rich, mellow, just about perfect. I liked it so much, I gave them my address and credit card info, and set up monthly shipments of a few pounds to Fort St. John so I could enjoy it all the time.

Slurping coffee aboard a Chilean ship docked in North Van.

Sadly, Second Cup - the only company licensed to sell it in Canada, then - stopped carrying the brand in 2008. I found a place in Ontario that now sells it, and will ship it, but it didn't taste as good as it had in the past, so I've resigned myself to life at Tim's. Cheaper, less hassle, but not as good.

Since that trip to Belize, I've sampled coffee all over the world. Ironically, because we import coffee from places like African and South America for consumption in North America, that often leaves lesser-quality coffee in those countries.

Travelling around Africa for six weeks, I gave up trying to enjoy a good cup of coffee, and opted for tea instead.

Ditto, in Ecuador. Although I didn't give up coffee for tea, it was not as good as the coffee I drank at home.

When I returned to South America six years later, Starbucks had infiltrated the consumer coffee market, so forget about enjoying an authentic native coffee.

Starbucks in Lima tastes the same as Starbucks in Taipei, which tastes the same as Starbucks in Vancouver, which tastes the same... you get the picture. And yeah, I'm not a Starbucks fan. If I want burnt coffee, I'll take a cup of Tim's and re-heat it in the microwave.

I have enjoyed good cups of coffee elsewhere.

The best iced cappuccino I've enjoyed was a Terri's Cappuccino Bar in Fort St. John. It was a regular daily indulgence there, winter and summer, for two years.

Don't forget to add the Bailey's!

And nothing beats a cup of "campfire cappuccino, brewed on a camp stove, served up with a healthy portion of Bailey's, during a camping or paddling trip.

I tried to obtain some samples of Kopi Luwak during a trip to Malaysian Borneo, as that renowned "civet-poop coffee" is produced in Indonesia. No luck, though - although I did enjoy some wonderful "pulled tea." (As it turns out, the way this coffee is harvested may not be in keeping with good practices with respect to treatment of wildlife, so I may postpone the hunt indefinitely.)

Enjoying a coffee on the road in Haida Gwaii.

As for other coffees...

Kona coffee from Hawaii is VASTLY overrated, in my opinion. I've sampled several cups on both Maui and the Big Island, including some at a coffee plantation.

Quite frankly, I couldn't figure out what the fuss was all about.

And while I've never sampled Jamaican Blue, I suspect my reaction would be much the same as it was to Kona.


That's not to say I'll never enjoy a cup of coffee on the road. But I feel like I've already found the Holy Grail of Coffee, so I'm resigned to the fact that even if I'm at Avalon, the coffee they serve there probably will not match the cup I enjoyed back on that April morning in Central America.