My new favorite coffee brewing method is also the worst for road-trips

 A road-trip is a great way to figure out what you want to do when you get home.

It's been almost 7 weeks on the road camping out of my Jeep. Since the Jeep TJ is such a small vehicle to fit all the gear two people need for 8 weeks on the road, a lot of thought went into what we need to bring - and what we don't. 

One of the things I had to have was a coffee brewing method. I had been making coffee with a pour-over set for many months. My set included the basics for making a perfect cup of coffee: a chemex, paper filters, a kettle, a food scale, and a grinder.

A week or so before leaving, I purchased a Phin filter set from Nguyen Coffee Supply. It included everything you need to brew coffee the Vietnamese way - including Vietnamese coffee. 

It's an extremely simple method of brewing a great cup of coffee, and it doesn't even require precise measurements like a pour-over set does. It doesn't require paper filters, either, which means less waste. 

Vietnamese coffee is strong, sweet, and delicious. It utilizes Robusta coffee beans which are more commonly grown in Vietnam. Robusta coffee beans have over 2x the caffeine as Arabica, and offer a more dark chocolatey flavor profile - something I love.

The Phin kit comes in 4 pieces: the base plate, the cup, the top, and the lid.

To make coffee using the Phin kit, first you put a spoonful of sweetened condensed milk in the bottom of your glass you're going to brew into. Next you fill your glass with ice. After you put the base plate of the Phin on your glass, add between 15-18 grams of coffee, ground to a fine sand texture, into the filter cup. Place your filter top on the coffee, pressing until you feel some resistance. Put a small amount of water on the filter top to let the coffee bloom for about 30 seconds, then fill the water (200 degrees F) to the top of the filter cup. Place your lid and wait about 4 minutes.

If you're brewing into a clear glass, you'll see rich brown coffee slowly drip through the tiny holes in the Phin. 

The finished product is a bold, sweet, and strong coffee. To me, it's a perfect mix.

I decided that this would be better to bring on the road trip due to it not requiring a scale or filters, and being as compact as it is. 

I quickly realized that it's not a very camper-friendly method.

First of all, Vietnamese coffee is best iced. Although it's still great warm, iced is where it shines. 

Since we're using a fridge, we don't have ice.

Second, not having a filter means less waste, but it also means you can't just pull the whole filter out coffee grounds and all to throw in the trash. You basically need running water to clean it after brewing.

We rarely have running water while camping.

Third, Vietnamese coffee gets its sweetness from sweetened condensed milk. Although we have a fridge, having an open can of sweetened condensed milk bouncing around in the Jeep probably wouldn't end well.

Not ideal.

Although I did make coffee with the Phin several times on this trip, it has been warm and with creamer instead of condensed milk. Still good, but not the same. 

Ultimately, it's still my new favorite method of brewing coffee. Just not on the road.

I'll stick with pour-over for that.

-Sean