Appropriately, I type this post while sitting in the Wegmans Coffee shop in Crofton, Maryland. Funny how the little things in life are really the BIG things and one of the first little decisions we wrangled with was how were we going to make our coffee in this new lifestyle? Our Keurig was too large to carry with us and required electricity. That would be fine if we were at a full hook-up site, but we anticipate doing a lot of “boondocking.” This means we may not always have access to electricity. We saw french press, Moka Pot, pour over and electric drip coffee makers advertised and promoted on various websites and RV blogs. We decided we would try several methods and see what was the best for us. We considered: taste of the final product, size/weight of coffee maker, energy use (electric or propane) and ease of use. We tried: Moka pot, french press, and pour over methods.
The Moka Pot was fun and small and the espresso tasted great! Espresso however would not be a daily requirement for us as it made me a little jittery. Who knew there was such a thing as too much coffee? No, maybe just a little too concentrated. It could be easily made on the propane stove. The Moka pot was definitely coming with us but we wouldn’t be using it everyday – just for special occasions and in small quantities.
We liked the compact size of the french press. We weren’t crazy about the taste of this particular method – maybe we weren’t doing it right? It seemed to have a little more acidic taste. The size was great but the clean up was more involved. The french press was a “no” for us.
Our final experiment and our ultimate choice was the pour over method. The Bodum pour over coffeemaker with a permanent filter is our favorite coffee maker.
We use paper filters to line the permanent filter as this makes for easier clean up and produces a better tasting cup of coffee in our opinion. The process begins with heating water in our teapot on our stove (propane.) We put 2 coffee scoops of Wegmans Traditional Coffee in the paper filter.
We then begin to pour the hot water slowly over the coffee grounds a little bit at a time, allowing time for it to drip through before pouring some more. After several pours the end result is a generous carafe of coffee – enough for 2 people! Yay! Small, lightweight, no electricity required, easy to use and makes a great cup of coffee – we love our Bodum pour over coffee maker.
Now we can move on to less important decisions.
thanks!!!