If you’re willing to get up, break out the stove and boil water while camping, then there are some excellent options for getting a good cup of coffee to help get the morning going. A camping coffee filter is just one of several different options for making that coffee. But it is definitely one of the better options, as it’s lightweight and small enough that it wont weigh much, and wont end up taking up much room in your backpack, which is always best when it comes to camping or backpacking equipment.
Camping Coffee Filter
What to look for from a camping coffee filter.- Design – There are actually a few different filter options when it comes to camping coffee filters. There is a drip filter option, which most people are familiar with. But there is also the immersion filter option, which works in the same way that a tea immersion filter does, and can actually double as a tea filter in a pinch.
- Weight – As with any piece of camping equipment that you’re going to have to carry, you want your camping coffee filter to be small and lightweight, so that it’s not like adding rocks to your backpack. Fortunately for you, most filters are fairly small and lightweight to begin with, so it’s a good option for saving weight and bulk.
Best Camping Coffee Filter
There aren't too many to choose from, but these are the best camping coffee filters.- GSI Ultralight Java Drip - The Java Drip is reminiscent of the drip filter that you use at home, though with some differences. It has a couple of plastic legs that slot on to the edges of your cup or mug, and then the filter portion is suspended above, so you can leave it to drip away while you attend to breaking down camp or making breakfast. But what really stands out here is that the whole thing weighs just .6 ounces, or 17 grams.
- MSR MugMate Coffee Filter - The MugMat is more of a traditional immersion filter that loose leaf tea drinkers are likely familiar with. You load the coffee in to the filter and let it sit in your hot water. The longer you leave it in, the stronger your coffee is. It's entirely reusable, of course, works with a wide variety of cups and mugs and weighs just 1 ounce, or 28 grams. It also won the 2009 Backpacker Magazine Editor's Choice Gold award.
- GSI Outdoors H2jO! Coffee Filter - This filter is similar to the MugMate above, but is designed to screw on to the top of a bottle, like a lid would. You can then close the lid and let the immersed coffee grounds do the work of making coffee. The drawback, of course, is that it only works with some bottles, or more specifically wide mouth bottles, like the wide mouth Nalgene bottles. So a good camping coffee filter, as long as you have a bottle that it will work with. It weighs a total of 1.8 ounces, or 51 grams.