Coffee on the Trail

Description

Taste Testing the "Best" Instant Coffee for the Trail!

Music By: Thunder/Dreamer

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Tags: Backpacking,AT,Appalachian Trail,Thru-Hike,Bike Touring,Coffee,Starbucks Via,Kuju,Alpine Start,Taste Test,Hiking,Camping,Trail Food,Trail Coffee,Long Distance Hiking,Instant Coffee

Video Transcription

hey guys it's Darwin here with my buddy Zach and today we're going to try some different instant coffees for the trail and let you know what we like the best [Music]

alright guys so there's a lot of different types of instant coffee usually whenever I do any actual car camping I usually take a percolator as equity usually take I take that arrow press arrow press cool so there yes so there's a lot of different types of coffees you can drink while you're camping but today I wanted to focus specifically on instant coffees that you can drink while you're doing a long distance hike maybe a bike tour something like that where you don't want to carry a coffeemaker a percolator an arrow press I'm so just instant coffee so we're going to look at a couple different types so the first ones that we figured that we would tackle are kind of the standards Folgers instant coffee that classic roast I'm sure a lot of you had and Nescafe so let's fire up the stove and go ahead and check some up so why this is boiling I figured I talked about what I mainly drank while I was out on the 80 lash you're in this year pretty much the standard for me and snuggles was Starbucks via a little bit more expensive and kind of hard to come by most times so a lot of times knuckles and I would send this to ourselves in the mail this stuff is like gold out on the trail so usually if you have it and you have enough of it you can barter for other things like Snickers bar or maybe some extra breakfast all right so we got a nice boil so let's try out what you pick first and the nasties I've had the Folgers I never had the Nescafe alright so Nescafe it is let's try out some Nescafe a lot of times you can find this stuff at like a Dollar General Family Dollar pretty much anywhere on the trail at any type of resupplies but you usually find this or Folgers first before you find any of these really good ones so like normal they're in these little bitty instant packs as you can hear this is kind of crunchy so that means it's good smells awful smells like instant coffee all right

bone Appetit a lot of coffee looks vaguely like Harris not a lot of coffee flavor know kind of like a vague bitterness just like grandma used to make so yeah so if you're in a pinch Nescafe is great not my first pick it is a little bit chemically tasting so um yeah not the best but again if you need caffeine in the morning I'm sure this will do the trick I would assume that this has caffeine in it this is the dark roast too so I know they they come in a couple different yeah yeah this is the dark roast good and dark yeah shall we move on might as well yeah all right so next up is Folgers good old Folgers again one of those coffees that you can pick up at a Dollar General pretty much anywhere on the trail any resupply spot I pretty much see this everywhere it's about a dollar a box and it's seven packets so if you're on a budget I would say this is probably a pretty good choice same thing with the Nescafe if you're on a budget so let's try this stuff out I used to see whenever we were on the trail people that had these would use like six packets in a cup of water just to get some coffee flavor so we'll see if a is any better than I remember but it's got like this smells like candy or something would would I was like a wet dog that odors so that tastes exactly like the nescau yeah no different maybe maybe a tiny bit less bitter I don't know probably know a little s better little s better I'll give him that kind of smells more like coffee the best part of waking up is not Folgers in your cup but it's a doable part of waking up yep we said if you've got to get caffeine and you got to get on the trail I'm sure these are great I ran into a couple of cats out on the trail that actually carried a one of the glass jars of these I don't know if you remember that when you were a kid your grandma or grandpa had like the glass jar and they would just spoonful it in there so I met a couple people that done that another thing that you can do with this stuff is actually take a jar of peanut butter empty out about half the jar of peanut butter and dump some of this in there and then mix it up I seen a lot of people just eating spoonfuls of that for breakfast so you're getting calories you're getting caffeine yeah it's good to start going and not have to boil the water all right let's move on let's try one that's kind of new to me I never did find this on the trail it is a new product it comes out of Boulder Colorado and some friends suggested this to me this is Alpine start let me see if I can get that some enough light on there they kind of did a dark box it's kind of like a recycled box a little uh little cool it looks like something that someone in the outdoors we have great leader very Boulder ish so a little bit longer of a pack and they suggest 8 to 12 ounces so it must be pretty strong so let's try it out we've got about 12 ounces in there so we'll try one packet a lot finer of a powder it's not crystals I've heard good things about it so we'll definitely try it out for just one packet looks that's a lot so oh you know right off the bat one packet versus our three packets of Folgers in this cafe the folders in this cafe are definitely cheaper but you got to use three packets to make a cup of coffee and this is supposed to only be one packet yeah I'll find stars smells really good

mmm tastes like coffee that tastes like coffee so Alpine's start good job um wow that's pretty tasty yeah that is the premium Italian blend it definitely doesn't have kind of a plasticy taste or a fake taste that tastes like a brewed pot of coffee so yeah definitely good so um one downside to you know a coffee like this is this box was $8 $9 so that's about a dollar a cup of coffee which is pretty expensive if you're on a budget on the trail probably not your best option

but it is definitely really good coffee I guess if you're going out for a handful of days maybe a section hike or something away picking up a box of this and having some good coffee is probably definitely worth it yeah it's good I I like that I finish this yeah I drank that every morning yeah what you don't see is in between these takes we've been pouring out the other coffee and not finishing it this is actually worth finishing especially at a dollar a cup all right so next up is my number one choice for coffee again these things were like currency on the trail if you had some of these you can pretty much buy anything people love love love the via put out by Starbucks for a while they're pretty expensive but I've actually been finding them pretty cheap usually you can buy like a box of six of them at like a Walmart or something for about four or five bucks so a lot cheaper and a lot better coffee this was my staple on the trail we pretty much hoarded these and there wasn't a day on the entire Appalachian Trail that I didn't have one of these so that's how that's how stuff on these in it so I already know what these are going to taste like I already know the quality of them I don't go to backpacking coffee - same thing yeah yeah and it's a lot of people's again you know one little packet eight ounces of coffee a lot of times if I was having a rough day or I knew it's going to be a big day I do like two of these in the morning have about 16 ounces we can usually find vizac like cost by a whole bunch of them yeah that's the great thing is if you go to like a big-box store like Costco Sam's Club you can usually find like these 26 pack boxes and get a lot of them which is really nice to stock up on and then send yourself some on the trail as well so if you're going to do any type of resupply mail drops or anything like that I highly suggest that because they can be kind of hard to find out on the trail we did find them at Walmart's and stuff like that

CBS's Walgreens whenever we went into a trail town but most of the time you know again you're going to find the folders and a Nescafe at most places so definitely stock up on these yeah yeah now that tastes like two years of my life so like I said every single morning I had this both in 2015 and 2016 levels on the trail so that's 2189 miles of memories um it does a good job of tasting just like a cup of coffee from Starbucks exactly yeah they did a really really good job and it comes in a couple different this is the Columbia I usually like the italian roche is what i pick up a little less a Sikh I feel like the Columbia has a little bit of like an acidic taste to it

the Italian is like really nice and smooth and that was kind of my go-to for the trail the other great thing about these is if you don't have a stove or you don't want to waste time boiling water in the morning you can just take it like throw it in your Nalgene or in your smart water bottle a lot of people would just actually carry a little disposable water bottle just to mix that up with cold water and as they're taking off on the trail just start chugging it goes down quicker because it's not hot obviously so I mean you don't get that enjoyable sit around have a nice hot cup of coffee but if you just need caffeine and you need it to go quick it's definitely a great option and it dissolves in water really nice unlike the flavor crystals like in Folgers so something to keep in mind if you're planning on putting these in cold water a little bit different can be kind of chunky these definitely dissolve really nice so I bet the Alpine star would dissolve - no extra alright so the last coffee that we have is one that again I've never tried it's called coogee it looks to be like a pour-over thing now this one big giant pack is a cup of coffee so I think this thing was like a dollar seventy-five two bucks so definitely not the cheapest but I figured I'd throw it in just to kind of give something a little bit different in this review kind of talking about different instant coffees this one's an instant coffee that kind of has a pour-over option so let's give this a try and see how this tastes it has like little wings on it okay so right away um if you have a snow pea cup even the 600 mil it looks like it's I don't know just watering in us yeah yeah putting water and I don't know so you tear it open you put the wings on there kind of like that you guys can see that little get the coffee down in there and then I'm supposed to pour this on here I'm kind of nervous that it's going to so right off the bat I can tell you if I'm doing three Eyck or doing any type of long-distance backpacking even doing a bike tour I don't want to do this every night this would drive me absolutely batshit crazy this is already time-consuming yeah yeah I already want coffee I bet it will be pretty good because it's like having a poor are a cup of pour over coffee so definitely not the most convenient backpacker friendly be a good coffee for like car camping uh but even at that like I rather always have percolator coffee I'm sure the Aeropress makes better coffee yeah I just call it this is there's a couple ounces in the bottom there yeah the other thing is I think like this so let's talk about pack it in pack it out responsible make sure you always pack out whatever you bring in this thing has swollen up kind of like a dirty diaper I don't want to pack this thing out I feel like you couldn't really get this thing dry and that's a lot of extra weight to pack out if you're building a campfire it looks like it's all you know buy oh yeah impossible like there's no plastic REME know so I'm sure you guys that you could burn it in somewhere on a fire but yeah once again that's not really backpacking through I can stop exactly yeah I mean it didn't make much coffee so that's all it is the San Francisco treat

it's good

it tastes like a cup of coffee hmm I mean it should I don't like my face any better than the other two so good options no yeah it's no better than like via or Alpine start but it's not bad I mean I drank it yeah if someone else was packing it out or buying it so not bad Wow again a little pricey a little bit of an aggravation to be able to pack it out the actual size of it is pretty big I mean that's one cup of coffee as you can tell just from that time it only made like that much coffee so I'm not my pick so out of all these which one would you say is the winner is going to be the Alpine start the Starbucks via the Folgers or the Nescafe or the Coogee you dirty diaper who has the best coffee I'm leaning toward that Alpine start I'll find that right just because I drink the via so on right right yeah the Alpine start is pretty damn good it's kind of hard to argue with that again a little bit pricier than the via um to me it's always going to be via it is my number one pick and it's because it's like fused into my veins at this point so that tastes right to me yeah so all good options just depending on what your flavor is and what your budget is so what other instant coffees are out there what do you guys drinking leave me some comments in the comment section below and tell me what you guys are currently drinking maybe there's something we don't have here that that you really like like or dislike this video subscribe to my channel if you haven't already and as always guys thanks for watching you

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