Camp Instant Coffee, Done Right
Instant coffee is not a compromise anymore. Treat it like coffee and it acts like coffee.
- calories
- 60
- weight
- 0.6 oz
- cal / oz
- 100
- protein
- 0 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 1 min
- cook
- 4 min
- total time
- 5 min
- water
- 300 ml boiled
- cost
- $
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Drink
- Breakfast
- Canister stove
- Campfire coals
- Alcohol / Esbit
- Liquid fuel
- Car camping
- Backpacking
- Thru-hike
- Bikepacking
- Basecamp
- Winter / snow
- Canoe / raft
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
- Gluten free
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Dump and stir
Ingredients
| Instant coffee | 2 to 3 g | specialty freeze-dried, not the jar from the back of the cupboard |
|---|---|---|
| Salt | one small pinch | cuts the bitterness that cheap instant leans on |
| Sugar | 1 tsp | optional, and less than you think you want |
| Cinnamon | a shake | optional |
Method
- Heat 300 ml of water until it just starts to move. Full rolling boil scorches instant coffee and gives you that flat, burnt edge.
- Pull the pot off the flame and count to thirty. You want roughly 200 F, not 212 F.
- Dump the coffee and the pinch of salt into your mug or straight into the pot.
- Pour a splash of the hot water on first and stir it into a slurry, then add the rest. Lumps of undissolved instant taste worse than the coffee does.
- Add sugar and cinnamon if you are using them. Drink it while the mug is still too hot to hold comfortably.
Instant coffee earned its reputation in an era when it was made from the cheapest beans available and dried with heat. Freeze-dried specialty instant is a different product, and the failure mode on trail is almost never the coffee. It is the water. Boiling water strips the aromatics and pushes the bitter compounds forward, which is why camp coffee so often tastes like ash.
The pinch of salt is the other lever. Sodium suppresses bitterness on the tongue more effectively than sugar does, so a little salt lets you use less sugar and still get something drinkable. Slurry first, then dilute, or you will find a clot of dry granules at the bottom of the mug.
Packing
Pre-portion coffee, salt, and sugar into a single small zip bag per morning, or count out sticks if your brand sells them. Loose instant in a bulk jar cakes into a rock the first time it meets humidity.
Variations
- A tablespoon of powdered coconut milk turns it into something closer to a latte and adds fat you will use later in the day.
- Stir the coffee into a pot of oats instead of drinking it separately. One boil, two jobs.
- In the cold, make it half strength and drink two mugs. The heat matters more than the caffeine.
https://lunolife.com/products/campers-blend-instant-craft-coffee