Camp coffee making started for me when I was working as a counselor at a wilderness/challenge camp for incarcerated youth in northern Minnesota. As part of the program, we took groups of residents on 3-week wilderness expeditions year-round. Canoeing, backpacking, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing and the common denominator for all of us counselors was coffee. Back then (this was quite some time ago) we had three main ways to get our morning fix of coffee: cowboy coffee, percolator, and instant. I’ll talk about these three methods and throw in a couple more that I’ve tried since that weren’t o ..read more

If you’re like me and you really enjoy great coffee but don’t always have the time to futz around with any of the more time-consuming methods, you rely on your drip coffee maker. I’ve used the Cuisinart DCC-3200 for the past few years and have been pretty happy with it. Decent coffee with the standard beans from Starbucks, Caribou, etc., but what it really comes down to as far as I’m concerned is the beans. It’s all about the beans! If you don’t start with quality, fresh-roasted coffee beans, you simply won’t get a great cup of coffee out of your drip coffee maker. Buy Locally If you’re fortun ..read more

Coffee tasting isn’t typically seen as esoteric and high-brow as wine tasting but there are a lot of people who take it very seriously. And rightly so in many cases—a lot of people’s livelihoods depend on their knowledge and abilities with regards to coffee tasting. From growers, to importers, to buyers, distributors, roasters, baristas, coffee shop owners…all need to have a keenly developed sense of what separates a great coffee from a good coffee. This article, though, is for the average person who just really, really likes coffee and maybe wants to impress a friend or barista. TIP 1: Famili ..read more

Using a French Press is arguably one of the best and easiest ways to step up your coffee-making game to the next level. Now, I’m all about convenience and ease-of-use which is why I have a programmable drip coffee maker that I use as my workday, make-a-pot-to-fill-up-the-thermos coffee maker. However, the weekends and vacations are reserved for the French Press and the full-flavors it pulls out from the beans! Here are the steps to getting the perfect French press coffee. After you do it a few times, you’ll be able to kind of “wing” it and adjust according to your tastes. Step 1: Heat your w ..read more

In a previous post, I sang the praises of using a Whirley Pop popcorn popper as an inexpensive way to give home coffee roasting a try. There’s a really good video from Roastycoffee.com linked in my website. Definitely take a look at that and search out some other Youtube videos before you get started. I’m merely writing this post to give you the general idea. I’ve tried to simplify the process as much as possible as home coffee roasting can quickly get very involved and detailed. Gather all your gear before you get started. You want everything within arm’s reach before you get to turning the ..read more

If you haven’t tasted coffee that has been freshly roasted and ground, you really have no idea what you’re missing. And the best part is, you really can do it yourself with just a little bit of knowledge and some experimentation. I became a home-roasting convert after I bought some freshly-roasted coffee from a local shop, went home and brewed it with my cheap little drip coffee maker, and was blown away by the flavor! All the off-the-shelf coffees I had run through that maker before tasted more or less the same. This was a whole new experience! Basic Home Coffee Roasting Equipment If you’re ..read more

You’ll not get much coffee snobbery here. However, if you seem to get similar flavors from your drip coffee maker regardless of the beans and if you are looking for a reasonably easy way to make a great cup of coffee, then you really need to give the French press a whirl. I’ve tried quite a few different French presses over the years and the best one for the money that I’ve come across is the Coffee Gator Insulated French Press (see Recommended Products). The Coffee Gator French Press has a couple of nice features going for it: it’s insulated which makes it less twitchy when it comes to water ..read more

Just a quick nod to what I’ve found to be a really, really fantastic manual coffee grinder. If you search Amazon for “manual coffee grinder” you’ll see dozens and dozens of very similar-looking products. I’ve tried a few of them and they are literally the same grinder. A little deeper dig and you’ll find that most of them are sourced from the same place. The Shanik Portable Burr Coffee Grinder stands out among a field of ho-hum grinders. Adjustable grind, built-in measuring cup, easy to disassemble, silicone grip, all stainless steel construction, a handy silicone lid to keep your coffee in (e ..read more

Camp coffee making started for me when I was working as a counselor at a wilderness/challenge camp for incarcerated youth in northern Minnesota. As part of the program, we took groups of residents on 3-week wilderness expeditions year-round. Canoeing, backpacking, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing and the common denominator for all of us counselors was coffee. Back then (this was quite some time ago) we had three main ways to get our morning fix of coffee: cowboy coffee, percolator, and instant. I’ll talk about these three methods and throw in a couple more that I’ve tried since that weren’t o ..read more

If you’re like me and you really enjoy great coffee but don’t always have the time to futz around with any of the more time-consuming methods, you rely on your drip coffee maker. I’ve used the Cuisinart DCC-3200 for the past few years and have been pretty happy with it. Decent coffee with the standard beans from Starbucks, Caribou, etc., but what it really comes down to as far as I’m concerned is the beans. It’s all about the beans! If you don’t start with quality, fresh-roasted coffee beans, you simply won’t get a great cup of coffee out of your drip coffee maker. Buy Locally If you’re fortun ..read more