There are as many schools of thought about how to make coffee while camping as there are leaves on a river birch.
Maybe you bring an AeroPress, always a packable backwoods favorite. Perhaps you have one of those plungers that turns your camp stove into a French press. Or you could shell out for a stainless-steel Yeti pour over.
But if, like me, you’re good with coffee that’s prepared as quickly as possible in the fewest steps necessary when you wake up, the camp coffee method that’s “so easy it’s almost cheating” is to simply toss a few instant coffee pouches in your bag and call it good.
Of course, it’s an added bonus if your morning cup of caffeine doesn’t taste like shit. These days, backpackers and bike campers who prefer to go the simpler, lighter, and (some would say) smarter instant route don’t have to rely on Starbucks VIA tubes, because independent shops like Dogwood Coffee Co. and Northern Coffeeworks sell instant versions of their beans for wilderness adventures.
Look, there are no wrong answers here. “There was a moment in the mid-2010s when bringing a whole setup—hand grinder, pourover, whatever—was in vogue,” says Naomi Vaughan, longtime head roaster and director of operations at Northern Coffeeworks. But she grew up backpacking with her dad, who would make them cowboy coffee; she remembers trying to avoid the grounds at the bottom of her mug.
“I feel like I’ve been both at different points in my life,” laughs Kayla Scott, sales and marketing director for Dogwood Coffee. “I’ve been like, I’m bringing my scale, and I’m bringing my kettle, and nobody’s going to tell me otherwise—and then after going camping a decent amount I’m like… yeah, that’s a good amount of work. I’m just mixing powder in my water.”
Northern's vibe has always combined coffee and the outdoors. “I think as camping, in a lot of ways, has moved in the ultralight direction, being able to offer [instant coffee] makes a bunch of sense for us,” says head roaster Vaughan.
Dogwood co-owner Dan Anderson is a nature lover and regular Boundary Waters explorer, and offering high-quality instant coffee just made a lot of sense. “I feel like when people think instant coffee, they’re thinking cheap, crappy powder that they mix in water,” says Dogwood’s Scott.
The key with these coffee satchels is that they aren’t crappy—you can dump them in hot or cold water and get a cup of coffee that’s just as good, or even better, as the stuff you’d brew with a fancy portable setup. This Racket staffer was an immediate convert; I’ve brought instant coffee from Dogwood or Northern on every single bike camping trip since trying it for the first time last year. (They also aren’t exactly cheap—it’s $17 for a box of six packets or $44 for a 25-cup pouch at Northern and $20 for a box of six packets at Dogwood.)
So how do you go about crafting an actually decent instant coffee? The secret is a company in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, called Swift Coffee—if you see a box of instant coffee on the shelves of your neighborhood indie coffee shop, there’s a near 100% chance Swift is behind it.
Swift pioneered specialty instant coffee; in addition to making their own house blends, they also manufacture instant coffee for shops like Northern and Dogwood. Shops send their beans to Swift, which performs some proprietary powdery magic and then ships instant coffee back in shelf-stable packaging.
In the warmer months, Dogwood’s instant coffee is the Panorama blend: fruity and citrusy, with notes Scott says pop in instant coffee. During the winter, Dogwood’s instant coffee transitions to Snow Emergency—last reserves for when you’re stuck at home during a storm. At Northern, you’ll always find Boundary Waters, their flagship drip, available in its instant form. It’s a crowd pleaser: a nutty, sweet, medium roast that’s delicious black but can stand up to sweeteners or milks, if you’re into that.
Vaughan says that while Northern’s instant coffee was originally designed to be enjoyed out of doors, people pick up packs for all kinds of reasons: to have at the office, for example, or to bring with them on hotel stays.
“Sometimes I’ll bring some home and I’ll catch my husband making it on a random morning at our house—I’m like, hey! This is, like, $3 a pop!” Scott chuckles.
