How to Brew Awesome Coffee In Your Hotel Room

In a previous post, I wrote about how Keurig coffee has officially jumped the shark. Hoping for a quick, easy and great tasting option for preparing coffee in my hotel room while working on the road, I was sorely disappointed by the Keurig experience. This article describes how I travel (relatively) light, yet still enjoy great coffee made in my hotel bathroom.

Supplies:

• Whole bean freshly roasted coffee. Support your local roaster!
• Cheap, whirling blade-style coffee grinder. The kind you can pick up for about $20.
• A small hot-pot like this Proctor Silex 32oz Hot pot (I have the previous model)
• An Aerobie AeroPress Coffee Maker (this one even comes with a fetching tote bag)
• Good bottled water – the first thing I do when I arrive in town, before checking into my hotel, is procure at least 1.5L of water for every day I will be there. Good water is very important for good coffee.
• A real coffee mug, or a travel mug. It has to be sturdy enough to resist the manual pressure required during extraction.

Instructions:

1. Put water in the hot pot and plug it in to get it heated up.
2. While the water is heating (takes a few minutes), use the AeroPress scoop to measure out an appropriate amount of whole coffee beans.
3. Grind the coffee. I find that with a whirling blade grinder that giving it a shake every few seconds while grinding helps to get a more even consistency. The AeroPress is very forgiving when it comes to grind, unlike most any other brewing methods.
4. Put the filter in place, dump the grinds into the AeroPress, per the directions. (The included funnel is a life saver!)
5. Place the AeroPress with ground coffee over your mug.
6. Once the water is at a good temperature (not boiling, but still hot), poor some into the AeroPress and use the paddle to mix around thoroughly.
7. Once about 45 seconds total have elapsed, use your muscles and press down on the plunger.
8. Unscrew the filter holder and use the plunger to push the ground coffee and filter into the trash can.
9. Add additional hot water to your mug until the volume is to your liking. (Basically, this is an Americano.)
10. Dump remaining hot water from the hot pot and let it cool before using a towel to wipe it down.
11. Rinse AeroPress equipment and dry.

That’s it. It takes about five minutes for me to produce coffee that tastes better than anything available at Starbucks, or the hotel lobby or most anywhere else.

Enjoy!