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Coffee in a Van? Yes, Please!

Interestingly, the older I get, the more I opt for convenience. Guilty as charged. Back in the day, if I had to relocate, whether, across the country or town, I’d recruit an army of friends, and we’d pack a U-Haul truck and do it ourselves. Now? I wouldn’t move without hiring a moving company. I used to love camping … you know, leaky air mattresses, the hard cold ground, and all the work of setting up camp and then breaking it down. I’ve become weak. Soft.

Now when I camp, while I’m not rocking a $100K+ Sprinter van, I roll up in Nacho the MTB Van, and I’m set. I still have a long ways to go before my build-out is complete. It’s been tiny incremental steps to converting it from an 11-passenger van to a bona fide camper van. While I don’t have a bed in it, I have the next best thing: a hammock. Whenever I’m camping (or glamping), and it’s time to go to sleep, all I need to do is hang my hammock, climb into my sleeping bag, shimmy myself onto the hammock, and I’m set.

The best part of sleeping in a van is making coffee the following day. Usually, when I get to where I will be camping, I set up and organize everything in my van. I set up my coffee, cooking area, sink, portable toilet, and whatever else I need to do. So when morning arrives, I slink out of my bag, click on the burner, and begin making coffee.

Because I’m in a van, I’m not overly concerned with packing too much. That means I usually toss in a few different ways to brew coffee … pourover, AeroPress, and more. It’s one thing to brew coffee at home, but I love the adventure of brewing coffee in my van. I savor it more. It means more.

A few weekends ago, I attended the Evergreen MTB Festival in Port Gamble, WA. Apart from my bike, the most important thing I packed was my coffee set-up. The weather was perfect too … nice and cool as I was maybe 100-200 meters from the ocean. Since I’m nestled into my hammock, I sleep surprisingly well. I get a good 8+ hours of blissful sleep.

The first thing on my mind when I woke up was coffee. Click on the gas burner, add a water kettle, grind the coffee, and prepare my pourover. Methodical and meaningful. Simple.

That’s my routine. How about you? How do you brew coffee while camping or glamping?


Photos and words by Sean Benesh

Loam Coffee Founder and Brand Manager

Email: sean@loamcoffee.com