Nov 23 2008
campfire coffee BS style
There is nothing like a little vacation to make you better appreciate the mundane comforts of home.
We decided to go explore the mountains of Southern Utah and check out the national parks of Bryce Canyon and Zion. Along the way we decided to do a little camping in Death Valley and in the Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada and on the way back, I surprised the girlfriend with tickets to the Phantom of the Opera in Vegas baby!
Okay, I know what your thinking. What the hell was old BS going to do about his little coffee obsession during this week long extravaganza in America’s West. Well, don’t you worry because I had made contingency plans.
Well, sort of…
The night before we loaded up the rental and struck off for parts kind of unknown, I roasted up a batch of Guatamalen Antigua Los Pastores peaberry. I really wanted to make up some more of the Moka Java blend, but I really could not spare the extra time needed to roast two different beans. The next morning, I brewed up a big pot of peaberry in my Chemex and filled up my Thermos. I then ground up the remaining beans and put them into a Ziploc. Since I really did not want to blow my cash on a campfire coffeemaker, I came up with a simple plan to get fresh brewed coffee while sleeping out under the stars. I packed up my little Bodum single cup drip coffee maker along with a little pot to boil water with. I figured I could boil water over the campfire in the morning and make me up a cup of the go go juice. The only problem was that the campsite in Death Valley did not have one of those grill things that you can flip over the fire pit, so I had to get all MacGyver and use my charcoal grill to heat up my water. The water took forever to heat up and I was afraid that the coffee was going to end up tasting like mesquite briquetes, but in the end it turned out pretty damn good. Thankfully, the firepit at the Valley of Fire campsite had one of those flip grill things and the next morning’s cup was brewed more according to plans, although it did not taste as good for some reason.
When we finally got to the cabin, I realized I had only scant amount of my coffee left and I had to resort to actually buying some ground up stuff from walmart. Wierd thing was, the Sam’s Choice Ethiopian blend ended up not being too bad. It was a bit too dark, but still passable and probably on par with anything from Starbucks.
Stay tuned for some awesome pics of all the cups I collected along the way.
