Make Great Coffee on the Road with this DIY Travel Brew Kit
I travel frequently for work, and have spent many years subjected to office and hotel coffees that just plain bum me out. I finally decided that I had had enough and set out to put together a traveling coffee setup. This is the result of that quest.
What I Look for in a Travel Kit
First and foremost, my travel kit has to be capable of making good coffee. However, in order to be successful on the go, it has to be simple enough to use that I will actually use it. This means that it needs to support a faster brew time, and be easy to unpack, clean up and repack. For this reason, I chose not to go with a pourover set up. Even though pourover is my favorite way to make my morning cup, it just requires too much equipment to do right. So I went about designing my kit around the Aeropress.
Core Components
I should mention that the setup I ended up with is largely based on this great travel kit from Stumptown coffee, and if you wanted to, you could just buy it. But, as my loving wife will attest to, I like to take the more difficult road. I also already owned an Aeropress and a few of the other components, so it felt wasteful to buy the whole set. So, for those of you who are like me, still reading, and want a more personalized approach to travel coffee, I hope this will help you make some decisions on your own kit, whether or not you use the same things I used.
Aeropress
The Aeropress is a no-brainer as the brewer for a travel kit. It’s compact, its made of durable plastic, and above all, it’s an immersion brewer. Immersion brewing means the grounds are steeped in hot water for an amount of time, as opposed to pourover brewing, where water passes through ground coffee in a filter of some kind. For a travel kit, the immersion method has several advantages.
-
Immersion brewing does not require a fancy gooseneck kettle for precision pouring.
-
Immersion brewing is more forgiving of small changes to brew ratios. Since I don’t have a gram scale available on the road, I want to have some flexibility in my recipe.
Porlex Mini Grinder
The Porlex Mini hand grinder is the obvious choice for a packable pairing with an Aeropress for one reason: it was designed to fit inside of your Aeropress chamber. I’m not sure that any other grinder can make that claim. It also does a great job grinding coffee. In fact, I often find myself using it at home to grind coffee for my Aeropress, as it does produce a more consistent grind than my Baratza Setto 270, which is designed more for finer grinds for espresso. The Porlex mini has a ceramic burr set rather than metal, which means that it can be washed without risk of rusting. It has 13 grind settings which are adjusted with a ceramic wing nut under the burr.
Keep Cup
I love my Keep Cup in a travel kit for several reasons. I carry the 8oz cup, which is a perfect size for aeropress coffee.
-
It comes with a lid, which makes it more suitable for travel than a mug or tin cup.
-
It’s glass, which makes it nicer for sipping with the lid off than a plastic travel cup.
-
You can design your own, giving you a chance to personalize your setup.
If you would still prefer a mug or cup of some other kind, no one would hold it against you.
Carrying Case
The final important component that makes these parts a 'kit' is a bag or case to carry it in. Mine is a leather shave bag that was gifted to me for this purpose from Amazon. However, I’m not going to provide any links here because I think everyone should get creative. As far as measurements, this will depend a bit on the cup you end up with, but I wouldn’t go any smaller than 9" x 5" x 5".
Additional Items
At a very basic level, you’ll additionally need the following items.
Filters
I tend to carry a few Aeropress paper filters (they come with the Aeropress if you’re buying one.) as well as a metal filter from Able Brewing. I have been experimenting with layering a paper and metal filter together, but if you like a grittier (french press style) cup, you can use the metal filter on its own.
Something to stir with
The Aeropress stir stick is fine, but I tend to like a wooden or plastic chop stick better, as it is easier not to overflow your brew chamber.
A way to measure your coffee beans
At home I use a gram scale, but I didn’t want to have to carry one with me. What I’ve found works well are these mason jar shot glasses. If your carry case fits a bag of beans, then just pack one jar and use it as a guide to measure your coffee into before you grind it. The fact that they come with lids also gives you the option to weigh out individual servings ahead of time and pack them in the jars.
Improve & Customize
I have two hopes for this article. One is that you’re still reading (thank you so much!), and two is that you have several browser windows open doing research and building your own travel kit so you can up your coffee game on the road.