Civilization may crumble, but bad coffee is optional — I test coffee makers for a living, and these off-grid espresso machines are perfect for preppers | Daily Reports Online
So you’ve got your water, cash, canned food, and a wind-up radio, but something is missing from your prepping supplies. If the power goes out and your water supply is cut, how will you make your morning coffee? Put down that jar of instant granules — basic services might have failed, but your tastebuds haven’t.
Drip coffee is an easy way to perk yourself up and boost your morale in a crisis (just pick up a ChemEx brewer or a simple dripper with some filter papers), but if you’re aiming to conserve water then a shot of espresso is a better way to get your caffeine fix, so here I’ve focused on brewers for preparing shorter drinks.
Consider how you’re going to store your emergency coffee supply, too. Whole beans will hold their flavor better than ground, and I recommend keeping them in an opaque, airtight container in a cool place (light, heat, air, and moisture are the enemies of aroma compounds). You’ll need a grinder, too — look for one with burrs rather than blades so your coffee isn’t chopped up in rough pieces.
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If all that sounds like too much hassle in a crisis, opt for foil-sealed coffee pods instead. Both the Nanopresso and Dreame Ecceluxe Go below have adapters for brewing with single-serve capsules.
The Ecceluxe Go heats its own water, but if you pick a more basic brewer then you’ll need a different way to get it up to temperature. As the former editor of an outdoor gear website, I recommend a simple gas camping stove like the MSR Pocket Rocket 2, which will get your water up to around 203F / 95C in approximately 3.5 minutes. Now, onto the brewers…
Wacaco NanoPresso
The standard Nanopresso uses ground coffee, which you can tamp down using the scoop (the brewer has a valve to release pressure if you accidentally tamp it too hard), but if you’d rather use pods then the NS adaptor allows you to use Nespresso Original style capsules instead.
It feels robust and solid in the hand, and is packed with thoughtful little features like an insulated water tank and cup to protect your hands from heat, and an easy-clean portafilter that needs minimal maintenance.
Dreame Ecceluxe Go
Preparing an espresso with room temperature water takes about six minutes from start to finish, and you can prepare two or three drinks before the Ecceluxe Go needs recharging (from a portable battery or solar generator during a power outage). The brew unit itself is smaller than a thermos flask, and comes in a compact carry case that you can tuck away with the rest of your emergency supplies.
The Dreame Ecceluxe Go is due to go on sale in Spain and Portugal very soon, with the US following shortly after. There’s no plan for a UK launch yet, but it charges via USB-C, so there’s no reason British preppers can’t import one.
AeroPress and Manual Coffee Grinder
If you’re planning to keep whole coffee beans in your emergency supplies, you need the AeroPress Manual Coffee Grinder. I’ve tested a lot of manual grinders in my time, and this is easily the best. It has proper burrs rather than cheap blades so coffee is ground rather than shredded, and they’re adjustable so you can optimize the grind size to suit your brewing method.
The default setting is optimized for the AeroPress brewer, which you can use to make a short, strong shot of coffee to keep you awake, or a longer, smoother drink if you have water to spare. I have a plastic AeroPress in my locker at work (you never know what might happen), but if you want something extra tough then take a look at the rugged AeroPress Steel. If you’re part of a whole family of coffee-lovers there’s also the king-sized AeroPress XL, and if you need something you can also use on the road, the bijou AeroPress Go packs down into a compact travel cup.
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