Friends Don't Let Friends Drink Instant: The Calgary Guide to Camping Coffee

Let us paint a quick picture. You survived the brutal Friday afternoon traffic crawling out of Calgary on Highway 1. You found the perfect spot out in Kananaskis, unhitched the gear, built a fire, and slept under the stars. You wake up early, the mountain air is crisp, the mist is rising off the lake, and it is absolute perfection.

And then, you ruin the entire cinematic masterpiece by boiling water and dumping a packet of dusty, chemical instant coffee into your favorite enamel mug.

Why do we do this to ourselves?
We live in a province with some of the most breathtaking outdoor spaces on earth, yet we treat our campsite morning ritual like a punishment. People somehow brought into the myth that unless you have a high-end espresso machine and a precise digital scale plugged into a wall, you are stuck drinking brown water that tastes like a burnt campfire log.

We are here to tell you that you do not need to compromise. If people paddling down remote northern rivers can get a world-class brew, you can absolutely crush your morning ritual in a tent using our fresh small-batch beans and a few rugged, dirt-simple tools.

The Nahanni Wild Expedition: Coffee Roasted "Around the Clock"

To prove we take outdoor brewing dead seriously, let us tell you a quick story from earlier this May. We got a massive, monster order from Nahanni Wild River Adventures, an experiential guiding outfit running extreme rafting expeditions up north. They wanted to serve our coffee to their guests on the rivers. The catch? They needed 420 pounds of coffee!

To give you some behind-the-scenes context, we roast everything in small batches on our vintage equipment. A normal batch for us is only about 5 to 6 pounds. Between supplying half the top-tier restaurants in Calgary, filling online orders, and keeping our Kensington counter stocked, we already roast around 100 pounds of coffee every single day just to keep the lights on.
We were already flat-out busy.

When Joel booked this monster order, the shop turned into a beautiful, chaotic madhouse. We had to roast literally around the clock to hit the deadline. Once the mountain of beans was ready, the logistics began. We had to coordinate immediate air freight up to Whitehorse, where the boxes had to be delivered to a precise, secure address. From there, they were loaded onto bush planes, eventually ending up deep in the wilderness by the riverbanks, waiting for shivering rafters who desperately needed a hot, rich kicker.

Think about that for a second: there are people sitting in the middle of absolutely nowhere in the Yukon, surrounded by grizzlies and pine trees, drinking better, fresher small-batch coffee than half the corporate workers sitting in glass towers in downtown Calgary.
If they can get a premium cup by a freezing northern river, you have no excuse for drinking instant dust at your campsite.

The Travel Kit: Ditch the Glass, Keep the Craft

f you are ready to upgrade your outdoor setup before your next long weekend road trip, leave your fragile glass equipment at home in Calgary. Luckily, some of the best manual brewing methods on the planet were practically built to survive a drop down a mountainside.

  • The Aeropress: If you do not have one of these in your camping bin, stop reading this and come grab one at our counter. It is made of indestructible, BPA-free plastic, weighs almost nothing, and cleans up in about four seconds. You just pop the clean paper filter and grounds straight into your trash bag or compost bin, rinse it, and you are done. It pulls a rich, heavy-bodied cup that hits incredibly close to a proper espresso, or add more water and you get an americano.
  • The Classic Stovetop Moka Pot: The ultimate classic. An aluminum or stainless steel stovetop espresso maker is indestructible and can sit right on top of your camp stove or a sturdy metal grate over the embers. It forces boiling water through the grounds using steam pressure, giving you a thick, viscous, punchy brew that cuts right through the morning chill.
  • The Stainless Steel French Press: If you are brewing for the whole crew around the picnic table, a double-walled stainless steel press is your best friend. It keeps the coffee piping hot even if the morning mountain wind is biting, and it will survive being tossed into the back of your truck next to the firewood.

The Roasterie

AeroPress Colours

$69.00 CAD
$69.00 CAD
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Choosing Your Mountain Fuel

The gear is only half the battle. Different camping styles call for completely different bean profiles, and we have up to 52 varieties in our selection to match your exact outdoor vibe.

If you want a vibrant, crowd-pleasing cup to wake the whole campsite up, you need our Danish Breakfast. It is our most popular house blend right after our signature espresso blend, smooth, balanced, and absolutely perfect for sipping out of a tin mug while the sun comes up. If you prefer something with a bit more of a rich, old-school, smoky backbone that holds its own next to a camp fire, grab a bag of our New Orlean's Blend, another absolute house staple that never disappoints.

On the other hand, if you want something unique to elevate your morning look at a million-dollar view, pack a bag of our Costa Rica Sonora. It is a gorgeous medium roast single origin that brings a beautiful, clean complexity to your camp kitchen setup, proving you can get high-end café quality even when you are totally off the grid.

Smokey and rich - Louisana style of coffee the New Orleans.

theroasterie.com

New Orleans Blend

$22.00 CAD
$22.00 CAD
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The Ultimate Camp Secret: The Grind (and Pack) Strategy

Here is the one non-negotiable rule of camp coffee: fresh is always best. If you want to do it right, grab a solid, rugged manual hand grinder to toss in your pack. There is nothing quite like standing by the crackling morning fire, manually spinning the crank, and smelling those fresh aromas hitting the mountain air.

But hey, if you do not own a manual grinder, do not sweat it. Just swing by the shop the night before you head out out of town, and we will happily grind your beans to the exact setting you need for your setup.

To keep that fresh grind locked in for the weekend, here is our ultimate pro-tip: put your coffee bag inside a heavy-duty Ziploc bag and seal it tight. This keeps the moisture and mountain air out, keeping your coffee wonderfully fresh.
Plus, for absolute certainty, it gives you an extra layer of defense in case something breaks inside your pack. Because let us be honest, the last thing you want on a Saturday morning in the backcountry is coffee grounds that taste like leaked soap, or god forbid, bear spray!

So before you load up the vehicle and head out past the city limits this weekend, do your palate a favour. Skip the industrial instant garbage down the street, roll through Kensington, and let us help you prep the ultimate outdoor setup. Life is too short to drink bad coffee.

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