Hi All Just curious what works best for you, to pour good coffee when traveling. Do you use a portable hand espresso device? Or an aeropress? Or a v60 pour over funnel? Or? If so, specifically which make and model? Why? _What would you use, if you had limited luggage space_ (I once toured France lugging a full size piece of luggage weighing 22 kg, and will never do that again!). So assume one mid-sized piece. So you folks that carry a separate piece just for coffee equipment, well everyone has their own travel style, but it not what I’m thinking of for this thread. To start off the conversation, I do carry an OE Lido-E, but plan to improve on this. But this thread is not about which hand grinder is best. It’s about how to enjoy good coffee while traveling. I had used an aeropress many moons ago. This was before I bought my first espresso machine or had a decent grinder. I subsequently stopped using it, as its coffee lacked fineness. Should I revisit it, for travel? I then bought a “nanopresso”, which is quite portable but makes so-so espresso, and is abit bothersome to use. Along with a small battery powered wisk, to froth milk, albeit poorly. I’ve also travelled with the OE hand grinder and a smaller V60 style pour over funnel. Thoughts? Light weight/small sized ideas?

I tend to drink a flat white or latte at home but my travel setup is an aeropress and knock aergrind.

V60 is the brewer I use most at home, but strikes me as too much faff for hotel room brewing. Assuming you have a small kettle, that has a minimum boil suitable for your brew size. in your hotel room, I made decent pour overs using the OXO pour over brewer. Pre weigh water into a small kettle, grind your dose. When the kettle boils bloom with twice the coffee weight into the water reservoir, then rotate/jiggle the tank to ensure the dose is well wetted. At 1 minute dump the remaining water into the OXO water reservoir, cover with the lid and wait for it to drain through. Easy clean up too. I did a handful of brews to dial in before the holiday. The only pitfall I found was that the cups supplied in the room were very small and wouldn't hold the entire brew, so I borrowed some larger ones from the bar. The brews I made compared favorably with V60s from the local specialty shop. "I revisited the OXO brewer prior to going on holiday & thought it would make a decent hotel room brewer, paired it with the Feldgrind (12% 400 Kruve) and used the supplied kettle in the room. 13.7g coffee, 225g of water weighed into the kettle, for 180g of finished coffee. Bloom by adding 2x weight of the coffee straight off the boil to the OXO tank, then lift & rotate the tank to ensure all the grounds are wetted, at 1:00 dump remaining water into the brewer in 5 seconds. Lid on & wait. The brews in this test came out clean but on the low side of extraction, I should either grind finer to raise EY, or make larger brews." (I wasn't using anything like the full capacity of the OXO). I have also used the OXO tank very successfully with a Kalita 185, though not sure the wave papers are most practical to travel with: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKLgMQiaewo

We don’t carry anything to brew. It is too much off a faff, in our opinion. My wife and daughter won’t mind drinking anything available at BnB or coffee shop, despite loving the quality cup at home. I refrain from drinking coffee outside, unless we can find something good locally.

Same as Mark, the OXO for travelling would be good, or a plastic V60 2 cup cone and some papers….the aeropress is good…I have 2 of them and they would also be fine for travelling. Especially as the round papers can be reused many times. I got 15 uses out of a paper before I felt sorry for it and got a new one out 😁

Never carried around anything - if coffee is bad 'locally', then simply we don't drink it. However, this summer, because of the Omega launch, we had it delivered to the flat we were staying in, and brought a Turkish ibrik/cezve around. Next year, we may well carry the cezve and the Omega back to Italy!

@"CoyoteOldMan"#p34132 don't forget that having a few bad coffees whilst on holiday helps you remember how good you have it at home!

@"Dusk"#p34133 We always have those… if for no other reason that we need to decide whether the local coffee is good or bad! 😉

I take the C40, a V60 and papers and enough coffee for the trip in an Airscape. Whenever I’m traveling I usually take an ‘extras’ bag (I use a [Filson zipped tote](https://www.filson.com/filson-bag-program/rugged-twill-tote-bag-with-zipper.html)) which has a sketchbook and pens, camera and iPad so the coffee stuff gets put in there. During Summer I can get a weekend’s worth of clothes in there too for single bag traveling. I bought my Dad one of [these ](https://www.snowpeak.com/products/collapsible_pour_over-cs-113) but haven’t had a need for anything that portable myself as I tend to stay in hotels and don’t camp etc. It’s great though, and Snow Peak do a few other coffee related bits for outdoorsy folk. I’m curious about the Picopresso and may try one at some point. If space was a real premium I’d be inclined to take the collapsible pour over thing mentioned above and papers and the C40 along with pre-sealed bean doses.

I'd take pre-ground coffee and a Clever dripper and filter papers, although if I'm on holiday I'd rather just buy coffee from a local shop. It's a good excuse to get out and about.

I use an Aeropress & 1Zpresso Q2 when camping/bike touring as it's the least faff to use & clean. For hotel holis either V60, Clever or Nanopresso depending on whether I'm flying solo or +1. I got a Picopresso & IMS Basket for Christmas so playing around with getting that dialled in with the Q2 with a view to using that as my holiday espresso setup

Grinding & Pouring Coffee When Traveling

tompoland

Ta daaaaa…

Totally OTT as usual.

Flair 58 and Helor 106. Bag on the right contains scales, cup, WDT tool etc. Laminated photos remind me of the repacking sequence (there is another layer underneath) and how the Flair 58 works since it could be months between use.

If I am travelling by car the espresso case gets packed as is. If I am flying it goes inside my check in bag. Maybe not bomb proof but certainly baggage-handler proof.

At 11.3kg it just means I can’t travel to cold climates 😂

Dusk

tompoland

It looks like you could just about stuff a spare pair of shorts and t-shirt in the gaps!

DavecUK

tompoland If I am flying it goes inside my check in bag.

That’s why I like flying to coffee places no need for a machine or beans.

Nightrider_1uk Never thought about reusing the aeropress paper filters,

Lol, I tend to use one until I feel sorry for it. I think I’ve definitely had 15 uses from one it was still going strong when I pulled out a new one. These are the genuine aeropress filters, I don’t know how well knock-offs will do.

I rinse em under the tap and then place on folded kitchen towel which I reuse. Just had a nice aeropress now from a 4 times used filter. 😁

Uncletits

I’d be interested in what people think of the Nanopresso and Picopresso

We’re off to Oz again shortly and our daughter only has a pressurised machine so was looking at alternatives

tompoland

Uncletits this is pretty good

tompoland

Personally I am not a fan of the Nanopresso type of espresso makers. Small enough for sure, but a lot of work for a little coffee. The Flair Signature Pro 2 (or other non-58 Flairs) are very compact and would be my pick for a machine that can produce a very nice espresso and not add too much to your check in weight.

I previously used one for travel but these days I lug a Flair 58 around but it’s too heavy and OTT for most people.

Uncletits

tompoland any preferred retailer over there? Thinking we get one sent to our daughter and leave it there for us 😀

Or buy a Classic on eBay Australia

and renovate it while we are there

tompoland

Uncletits

Alternativebrewing.com.au normally have a very good range and are always hard to beat on price.

Coffeeparts.com.au are top operators too.

Norvin

We take an Aeropress Go with an Airspeed when traveling. We also take decent cups if there is room as drinking out of mugs isn’t the same. I can do without proper coffee for a short while but always find room for the kit if away for more than a weekend. We spent a month traveling in France last year, far too long to be without proper coffee.

JHCCoffee

It’s been a while since I used my Nanopresso. I recall that it was fussy and time consuming to use, with not a lot of output (quantity) and poor quality shots. Mind you, I was then using an inferior hand grinder.

PartySausage

I’ve had a Nanopresso for a couple of years. I got what they call the barista kit with it, which doubles the available basket capacity to 15g. I also removed the sprung stopper in the spout, which effectively made it an unpressurised basket. I’ve been quite please with the results I’ve got from it. Maybe I have low expectations. I do agree that there is a fair bit of faff involved for a small coffee but if I’ve got the time I don’t mind a bit of a faff. I quite good at faffing
I’ve just got a Picopresso & IMS basket at Christmas & yes it has similar if not more faff potential but have to say it’s been a step up from the Nanopresso.
The biggest thing about both systems is getting plenty of heat into them before brewing to help the extraction along, which usually requires pumping a couple of tanks of boiled water through to get the internals warmed up

JHCCoffee

PartySausage I also removed the sprung stopper in the spout, which effectively made it an unpressurised basket.

Thanks, PartySausage! I will try that. If you have a moment, might you post a pic with an explanation of this mod.

Uncletits

PartySausage that is really useful thank you

PartySausage

JHCCoffee I don’t have a pic to hand but there’s a vid from Wacaco how to do it here Wacaco Nanopresso.

JHCCoffee

And I will try it again, with my now better quality hand grinder, and by running some hot water through it first, to heat it up, as you suggested.

Question: What do folks do to make latte’s while travelling? I tried a battery operated wisk, which was not very effective.

Dusk

JHCCoffee

A French press can make pretty good milk

JHCCoffee

If I’m at one location for a few weeks, I just buy and then give away a moka pot. I think I will also buy and give away a stove top or electric milk frother (any suggestions on which would work best, for cappuccino type froth? ) next trip.

In fact, if I was staying at one vacation location for a couple of weeks, the cost of buying say a Breville DuoPro could be considered as part of the cost of the vacation.

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