You’ve seen them. Perfectly edited photos of beautiful people exploring and adventuring outdoors. The sun perfectly peeks over the ridge and kisses the now illuminated figure who wistfully stares at the valley below. The flannel shirt is perfectly tied around the waste, trucker hat is on backwards, and the colors of the whole image look too good … too real to be real.
We see images like these and more as we scroll through social media. Our immediate thoughts are … why don’t my trips look like that? We hesitate to click “like” because secretly we harbor jealously and a deep longing for that scene and that imagery. But it may never come. More than likely it never will.
And that’s a good thing.
Life is best unfiltered.
Life is more rich without editing photos.
Drinking coffee outside, no matter how amazing we make it, is more mundane than we’d like to admit. But that’s the way it should be.
On occasion we take our coffee gear, explore, and then set up our coffee and various brewing devices to take some photos for our website and social media. Yes, we edit them. Make colors more vibrant … use only 5% of the photos we actually took … don’t talk about the hassle of setting things up, moving them … hand grinding coffee … and then again … and again … and again. Oh, and don’t forget all of the things we DO forget! Water … lighter … and yes even COFFEE!
Coffee should be more than an accessory for social media influencers with perfectly manicured looks and highly edited photos. It’s a deep love and appreciation for something we think about and then enjoy first thing in the morning, especially when camping. You know how it goes. You had a so-so sleep. Your back hurts. You’re cold. Your tent and everything outside is damp because of the dew (and you left your shoes outside).
But then there’s coffee. You’re not awake while you hand grind your coffee, add water to and flick your Jetboil on, and wait. Whether you’re making coffee with an aeropress, French press, or pourover there is that first magical moment when take your first sip. You taste buds and brain cells join hands in unison and sing. Soon you forget your miserable night of sleep and all of the work it’ll take packing up wet gear as you head home. But in that brief moment you don’t care. You have coffee. You don’t mind that you forgot your favorite mug, or you couldn’t light your main stove, and that it is wet. You have coffee.
Life should be more about the adventures of the mundane. Misadventures. Simple. Regular. Non-hype. Not quite as filtered and perfect. We know our life isn’t so why should we expect every trip outdoors and coffee brewing experience to be?
Words by Sean Benesh
Photos by Grant Benesh