ProView – Hikers Brew Coffee
Coffee is as essential to outdoor pursuits as a good pair of boots and a backpack. Maybe even more so for the early alpine starts to get the goods or trying to rally after working all day. Having convenient REAL coffee (not instant!) to make on the trail, in the back of the truck, or in the tent is a real game-changer.
Hikers Brew Coffee
Product Description: Hikers Brew focuses on creating sustainable coffee that you can be proud to take on your next outdoor adventure. Our mission is to promote sustainability within the outdoor and food packaging industries. To support this mission, we offer a small multi-use and compostable package that keeps coffee fresh. This allows avid adventure seekers to take it with them anywhere they go.
Offer price: $15.00
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Quality
(5)
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Flavor
(5)
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Aroma
(5)
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Eco-Friendly
(5)
Summary
Coffee is as essential to outdoor pursuits as a good pair of boots and a backpack. Maybe even more so for the early alpine starts to get the goods or trying to rally after working all day. Having convenient REAL coffee (not instant!) to make on the trail, in the back of the truck, or in the tent is a real game-changer.
Overall
5Pros
- Compostable Pouches
- Flavor
Cons
- Not great for espresso
Hikers Brew pouches offer an easy way to take delicious coffee wherever you go. Each pouch gives you 24oz of coffee and comes in a compostable package to reduce your impact. With six different varieties available (four flavored and two regular) there is a coffee for every adventure within easy reach.
Pouches
My wife and I found each pouch to give us the perfect amount of coffee to fill our thermoses- 12oz each- and enjoyed the different flavors for different activities. The Mile Marker and Yurt Dirt roasts were ideal to get going in the morning. We found that both blends brewed well in the aeropress, the pour over, and the moca pot. The grind was not ideal for our espresso machine but still made a surprisingly good shot if we had some left over.
Flavor
Each of the flavored coffee options had a distinct flavor and we had fun pairing them with different activities. The smooth, chocolatey, hazelnut flavors of the Hazy Hiker went well with cold days ice climbing in the Ten Mile range. The Red Rocks blend had a salted Carmel flavor that was perfect for relaxing in the truck after being in the cold all day. Especially mixed with some Bailey’s and whiskey for après ski. All our friends loved the chocolate and toasted marshmallow flavors in the Some Mores and the four of us would split a pouch during cold belays on fall sandstone and granite. Van Life was my personal favorite and was my go-to in the afternoon when motivating for a run or hike after work. The Vanilla flavors made the early sunsets and headlamp adventures a little easier.
Brewing
Allowing the flavored blends a little longer brew time helped the flavor come out and kept them from being to bitter. Our preference was to use a whole pouch in our medium-sized pour-over and add 2-3oz of water at a time. Keeping the water as close to 200 degrees as possible (recommended by Hikers Brew) also helped keep the coffee consistent.
Eco-Friendly
Far and away our favorite feature of the Hikers Brew coffee was the easy to pack pouches. We usually shy away from individually packaged items because of all the waste they produce. Having easily compostable packages made us feel good about using them. Each pouch would go right into our compost when we got home and break down quickly. The convenience of being able to keep a pouch with our Jet Boil meant that we always had coffee when we needed it.
The Final Word
We loved the Hikers Brew pouches. It was fun to have different flavors to experiment with and pair with activities and friends. The packaging was convenient and compostable so we didn’t feel guilty about the individual packaging and the coffee was friendly to brew using a variety of different means. It will be our go-to coffee for adventures from here on.
About the Gear Tester
Justin Grisham
Justin is an emergency medicine physician and a climbing guide. He has a Fellowship in the Academy of Wilderness Medicine (FAWM) and has earned the prestigious Diploma in Mountain Medicine (DiMM) from the UIAA. He teaches wilderness medicine and high angle rescue techniques for the US Military and Wilderness Medical Society and guides rock climbing, skiing, and ice climbing in Colorado, Oregon, and Washington. Previously he was a climbing ranger with the National Park Service and the Chief Medical Officer and Squad leader with the Salt Lake County Search and Rescue team. He can be found sipping on coffee between pitches of hero ice and on Instagram at @slabsandskittles
