Camp Coffee

Rick,
This is the stuff:
http://www.britishcornershop.co.uk/britishfood.asp?id=DC0107

It’s for the british market, but I am sure it is the same as the stuff I’ve tried since the container looks identical. I checked the Chilean nescafe I have and it was imported from France. I suspect that the European ones are all the same.

I’d bet the link you provided to the Dutch nescafe is the same stuff. In fact, that one is pretty cool since it comes in individual servings.

For flavor, cowboy coffee (boiling water and grounds) can’t be beat. But it’s the very devil to get the grounds to sink at altitude (7000 feet seems to be the marker), and I end up using a bandana (what else, it’s official use #56) to filter. Does anyone know the mechanism which keeps them afloat? Since cold water (my favorite) or (reputedly) egg shells or (sometimes) a tap on the pot make them sink at lower altitude I suspect it’s surface tension; BPM recently suggested centrifuging the pot (there’s a visual!). If it’s surface tension, perhaps a little Kahlua would “break” it (but who wants alcohol at altitude?)?

I confess, I’ve always just scattered, as long as I’m not in intense bear country, and just skipped the coffee (take 2 excedrin) if I am. Is this wrong from a LNT perspective? I’m open to the possibility that it is…

As a newcomer to hiking light, I followed this thread with great interest. I was really excited and started to order a bottle of Nescafe Espresso. When it came time to check out, I found out the tariff is over $35 to ship from Great Britain to the US. Guess I’ll go back to drinking tea in the mornings instead of coffee.

Hi Verndal.

I would be happy to ship you some espresso or cappucinnos if you could ship me some Ceasar Gardini original Ceasar Salad Dressing as itis not anylonger on the market in Europe.
(its a British substitute they are selling now!)
Contact me at kim@email.dk if interrested.

Kim –

Thanks for the offer. It’s not that I can’t find the Nescafe Espresso – it’s simply that the tariff (import fee???) was 6 times the cost of the Espresso.

However, I will look for some Ceasar Gardini dressing for you the next time I go shopping. I don’t recall ever seeing it at the store – but I’ve been stuck on Paul Newman’s for a while now.

Newman’s Own Caesar Dressing – simply the best, nothing else comes close.

Some restaurants serve it (but they don’t tell the customers that they are serving off-the-shelf Caesar Dressing).

Kim, give it a try if you can find it in Denmark (you live in Denmark right?).

Best of all, ALL of the profits go to benefit Paul Newman’s “Hole-in-the-Wall-Gang” Camps for children with terminal illnesses. [Note: Just in case anyone is wondering, the camp name comes from Mr. NewMan’s old movie “Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid”]

Ups.

Hi Poul.
Yep. I live in Denmark.
(Just for the records. Poul; in Denmark, as in China and other places, Kim is only a boys name. :-)

The problem with the dressings is atually a geopolitical one. If a food from USA can not be guarantied not to contain GMO (GenModified) it should be marked as possible GMO if to be sold in the EU. The company which distribute the Caesar Gardini products say that they dont think they can sell the products with this marking on it. In a few years they however expect the EU consumer to be used to the idea of GMO products, but for now its a no-no here.

Caesar Gardini was the original inventor of the Caesar Dressing and Salad. I think it was 1929 at Hotel Astoria, New York.

However I will look for the Newmann dressing when Im in Caribian Just want to taste it. :-)

Newmans Own is simply The best dressings made. Would love to replicate it but have not been successfull. Kim this is The best dressing and his Ceasar dressing is out of this world. Also the best thing about the dressings is that all the profits go to worthwile charities.

Try Minimint coffee filters. You can get a trial package cheap. They are based in Canada. Here is the link…

http://www.miniminit.com/index.html

I use Mount Hagen Organic Cafe when I’m on the trail. It’s a freeze-dried instant coffee I found at my local coop – it’s not too expensive. I enjoy a strong cup of black coffee every morning – on the trail or off – and this does the trick! What I like best about it is that it dissolves in water very readily even if the water is not heated. I’ve taken to not even pulling out the stove for breakfasts anymore.

My friend just recommended Javette coffee concentrate. It’s a single-serving coffee concentrate that makes a good cup of coffee and you can alter the amount to make your coffee strong or mild. It lightweight and pretty pressure resistant and looks, smells, and tastes like good coffee. I’ve made hot coffee and great cold frappacinos with it.

It’s will definitely come with me on all my backpacking trips!

Have any of you other coffee heads tried Greek or Turkish powdered (stone ground) coffee? You just stirr a spoonful into hot water, wait a minute and decant the coffee – or just drink it down to the grounds. If you want hair on your chest, keep it stirred vigorously and drink grounds and all. Really good stuff. Keeps well, beats instant, no filters or equipment to mess with. Espresso grind is almost as good as official Greek or Turkish coffee.

I have taken turkish coffee with me before. It tastes great, but if you don’t want to drink the grounds they are hard to clean out of the pot. I used the bring to an almost-boil three times method, but I will try just mixing with hot water next time.

I used the Najjar brand that has cardamom, and the smell is POWERFUL. Even through three layers of ziploc I could still smell it (and all my mango slices tasted like it). An OP Sak or a foil lined bag is a must with this stuff.

Yeah, the cardamom knocks my nose off. I wonder if it attracts bears. As you noticed, you can’t seal it off.

Frankly, I got sick of the flavored stuff, and now just go with the plain Turkish or Greek — Turks and Greeks get all irate, but the coffee is about the same.

there is a lot of similar behavior between various species of animals. as i’ve recently read about bears (both here in the BPL Forums and on some links to authoritative web articles), i see so much similarity between certains aspects of bear behavior and dog behavior (which i am rather familiar with). yes, there still are diffs., but a lot of similarities.

i’m guessing that, like dogs, bears will investigate a “new” scent, e.g. cardamom, out of curiosity just for a closer sniff and possibly taste to see if it’s edible. bears, being omnivores, might even be more curious about these non-meat scents than carnivorous dogs are (and dogs are still curious about them). they also have a much better sense of smell than even blood-hounds (3x the nasal passage surface area with olfactory related nerve endings, and a larger pct of their brain devoted to olfactory than dogs).

to me, cardamom smells like it could be food. imagine how a bear might perceive it!

however, i know nearly nothing about bears, so i’m just guessing here. better to err on the side of safety. remember, if a bear finds out, upon closer investigation, that it doesn’t like the cardamom, there is always the nearby human!!! that’s why i also hang the food far away from the night’s bivy area and hope that i can remember where and find it the next morning! [prob. naive – if a dog could track me from the “hang” to the bivy, a bear certainly can too – but, still a good thing to do.]

Paul,
You’re dead on. No one knows much about bears. Just when you think you have them figured out, you get gobbled up. That’s the point. Bears and dogs can smell stuff – and smell it so well – we can’t imagine it. Then they can act in unpredictable ways.

That’s why anything with a hint of odor goes in the hang bag – and in : toothpaste (for those who carry it), citronella/ment/of any other non-DEET insect repellant, soap, all toiletries (for those who don’t just go with the stink).

>>”the stink”

Vick, what do you think? perhaps even “the stink” smells like food? i’ve seen dogs (not mine) gobble down stuff that i couldn’t get near my nose. perhaps the worst (but by no means the only) example, some dogs low on certain nutrients may resort to coprophagy to obtain some. also, for hours afterwards our breath, and glands can exude many diff. types of food/chemical odors – not just things like garlic, onions, broccoli.

OOOH! Let’s hope secondhand broccoli and onions are not attractive to bears.

May I offer, for you coffee efficiandos, the primo way to have your drip, filtered coffee on the trail in a light, easy-to-pack system.
onefreshcup

Yes, it’s not cheap. The mug size works really well..I can even get it to spread and hold over my Bistro coffee press (I like the size of the mug)

The coffee is excellent and it’s worth every penny, IMHO…I’m used to European coffee..strong, not bitter, smooth..this stuff is pretty good and, by far, the best for Backpacking I’ve ever found.

Instead of using eggshells to make the loose grounds to sink after brewing, sprinkle/throw a little cold water on the surface of the coffee. It only gets a little chewy towards the bottom of the pot/cup.

I’m really getting tired of the cowboy coffee bit. I ran across a coffee press that fits inside a Nalgene bottle – http://www.press-bot.com. Looks fairly light and might beat the whole cold water and egg shells magic show.

I’ve used a single-cup coffee maker at home for years, and it would also work fine on the trail:

http://baldmountaincoffee.com/page/BMCC/PROD/Swissgold_Coffee_Filters/SWISS-KF300

The one I bought in 1992 is still in working condition. Picked it up an espresso place in Shasta City, CA.

I find that the Filtron system (www.filtron.com) is easier to use than the Toddy brand.

I’ve been using the cold-brew for my daily coffee for a few weeks now and can’t wait to try it on a trip.

vv
J.O.