What better way to welcome a New Year than a gravel ride that included brewing coffee outside with our new travel pouches? That’s exactly what we did on January 1st. It was cold, drizzly, foggy, muddy, and the perfect weather to ride and test drive our new travel pouches. Here’s what happened …
When we left Portland, it was bright and sunny. We headed east an hour into the Columbia Gorge. It was one of the few times I didn’t bother to check the weather. Why bother? It was all blue skies in Portland. It was drizzling when we got into the Gorge, and the temps had dropped. While I had a rain jacket and all my bike bags were waterproof, I still wasn’t prepared for the rain and temperature drop.
The plan? Ride a 25-mile loop, stop along the way, brew some coffee with our new travel pouches, and take lots of photos of the journey. Check.
I’ve actually had these travel pouches ready to go for the past several months. We ordered separate green coffee beans just for these pouches. I roasted repeatedly to dial in this coffee and was ready to go … until the whole Nacho the Van debacle hit. With all of the effort and energy dealing with Nacho getting stolen and recovered and then all of the insurance stuff, I knew I had to push back the release of the travel pouches. Then December hit, and holidays … you get the point.
This New Year’s Day gravel ride was just what I needed to get out, ride, brew coffee with our travel pouches, and take lots of photos. It’s one thing to test drive these travel pouches in the comfort of a climate-controlled building, but a whole different experience to brew coffee in the wild. And that day happened to be in the low-40s and drizzly. Again, it's perfect weather for brewing and drinking coffee outside.
Sold as 5-packs, each pouch contains a disposable pourover filter and 15 grams of ground coffee. The coffee is preground just for this specific filter. Inside each sealed pouch is a sealed single-use pourover filter. Once you open the pouch, you also need to unseal the pourover filter. It is sealed to ensure all of the coffee stays inside.
When your pourover filter is unsealed, the next step is to place it on a mug. At that point, the rest is just like brewing a normal pourover. Heat your water, pour, and then drink! Keep in mind, since each pouch has 15 grams of coffee, at a 1:15 ratio, you should use 225 grams of water when you pour. Even when I go gravel riding, I always pack a scale. The little one you see in these photos are found on Amazon for $13.99. I never leave by brewing to chance. I always measure.
These pouches not only work great for gravel riding/bikepacking, camping, at the trailhead, or at home, but work great for traveling. I recently returned from a trip to visit family in Arizona. I took several of these travel pouches, my kettle, and scale with me. Simple and easy.
One last feature for these pouches is we will have a separate coffee just for these. In this case, we’re roasting a naturally-processed Ethiopia Buno Dambi Uddo. With flavor notes of plump blueberry, blackberry, and cranberry juice, this is not simply a quick-and-easy way to brew and enjoy coffee, but it's excellent coffee as well. When you order, we’ll fill the pouches with coffee that was roasted that week to ensure freshness.
Interested? Click below to snag a 5-pack of our new travel pouches.
