Early morning coffee

[Henry]

In a F&I war camp, coffee is not PC ,
at least for the common man . It is one of those
times where I will go as far as drinking instant
coffee.

One spoonfull of coffee , two inches worth of
sweet condensed milk ( sold in tubes , like
tooth paste , your local Polish delicatessen
should have some ) in the canoe bailling scoop .
hot water ... enjoy discretly .

My friends do wonder why I always volunter
to wash the pea soup from the " chaudi

 

[Cruzatte]

Seems like the reason you grind the beans is to expose more of the bean's insides to the water so more flavor and color can leach out. Seems like boiling them whole would waste a lot of beans, unless they were cheap (hard to believe), or you dried them out and used them over and over?
Patsy

Mere poetic license, I'm thinking. Heck, worse comes to worse, grab two stones and grind your coffee that way. There's plenty of stones here on the prairie. And -- where's Cookie, anyways? He's the guy should have the coffee pot on for all the hands on the drive. :hmm:
Yup buckeroos and buckerettes, beans, beef an' coffee the cowboy's three food groups.

Cruzatte

 

[dryfly]

Tea is eaisier.

 

[CrackStock]

Strong,

I would bring the water to a boil and then set aside to simmer. I would put my coffee into a cloth bag and steep it like a tea bag. I do not normally boil my coffee as I find it becomes bitter. Don't get me wrong, I am from Louisiana and like strong French roast coffee, but not bitter coffee.

I am also quite fond of my coffee press. I wonder if I could make up a copper container and some sort of mesh press that would not be too noticeable. Hmmm...

CS

 

[rayb]

re: mesquite beans

yes, they're ok to eat, but they have to be ripe, the green ones taste bad (to me).

Took a bite from a huisache bean once. once. once was enough. :nono:

someone gave me some mesquite bean jelly, it was ok. but one jar it had some diced jalepeno in it also, kind of overpowered the rest of the taste.

i can remmber treating horses that had not had much to eat except mesquite beans for a while... what a mess. but they straightened out pretty quickly with good pasture.

rayb

 

[NORD]

I would bring the water to a boil and then set aside to simmer. I would put my coffee into a cloth bag and steep it like a tea bag. CS

Well hello all it is me again!

I took a morning trek last Saturday and prepared my coffee in the fashion that CrackStock did and it was great!

Thanks for all the input!

 

[soquili]

re: mesquite beans
yes, they're ok to eat, but they have to be ripe, the green ones taste bad (to me). Took a bite from a huisache bean once. once. once was enough. :nono:

i can remmber treating horses that had not had much to eat except mesquite beans for a while... what a mess. but they straightened out pretty quickly with good pasture.
rayb

Yep, the beans have to be ripe, pods yellow and ready to fall off the tree. They're not bad raw then. Never tried huisache...but I'll take your word for it!

My horse used to founder on mesquite beans and/or clover, even if there was plenty of grass to eat in the pasture - loved 'em, to his detriment...kinda reminds me of his owner and desserts... :youcrazy: ::
Patsy

 

[adbranaman]

PC coffee will never work for me.I like my coffee with non-dairy creamer and splenda.I never could handle coffee black.Mili kapi!

 

[oomcurt]

I dunno..I like my coffee strong enough that the spoon stands up by itself in it..and dumop in enough sugar that your mouth sort of glues itself together. Best coffee I ever had was made in one of those old blue and white speckled pots that didn't have a holder for the coffee grounds..just dumped the grounds in the water, and oh yeah, really..I do not mind chewing on a bit of coffee grounds either. Speaking of, I tried something a while back..for all the pipe smokers out there...take some used crounds..dry them and sprinkle some in your tobacco pouch with your tobacco...not a bad smoke if I do say so myself.

 

[Bob J]

Sounds good to me. Being something of a coffee connoisuer--OK coffee snob--<sheesh> I roast my coffee over the fire in my skillet. Then while the boiler full of water is set by the fire to boil, I grind up the beans with my tomahawk. When the water is hot, I dump the grounds into the water, cover, and set the boiler near the perimeter of the fire to steep. After a few minutes--voil

 

[cayugad]

When we go out for an overnight hunt, all we do is take a small cast iron fry pan cook our meal, then add water to boil clean the fry pan. After the fry pan is clean dump some water back into it and get it boiling. Add one or more heaping teaspoon of ground coffee in your large tin cup, pour in the boiling water from the fry pan and move the cup back off to the fire edge to simmer and stay hot. We drink it grounds and all and just strain the grounds with our teeth as we drink it. A strong cup is excellent.

 

[merdean]

I have strained enough coffee with my teeth. 20 years drinking GI coffee. Like the tase, but I would rather not strain it with my teeth. Don't like it. I have an aluminum perculator that works for me. The outside gets pretty black from sitting on the fire but just scrub it with a little sand and the black goes away. I like my coffee too much to be 100% PC. Besides, my blaze orange nylon tent and folding camp chairs are not PC either but I use what I have. :relax: I am getting too old to sit Injun Style!

 

[cayugad]

I agree with you merdean.. we are just to lazy to carry a coffe pot with use and since we only do it a few times a year, a little grounds helps the world seem right. But like you I am not all that PC when I do my stuff. If someone wanted to carry a coffee pot I'd be more then glad to use it..

:thumbsup:

 

[NORD]

I agree with you merdean.. we are just to lazy to carry a coffe pot with use and since we only do it a few times a year, a little grounds helps the world seem right. But like you I am not all that PC when I do my stuff. If someone wanted to carry a coffee pot I'd be more then glad to use it..

:thumbsup:

:haha: I know what you mean and I agree with you.

I think I will be making my own pre wrapped packets of coffee grounds for my one cup of coffee, seems to work ok...I checked on those Folgers pre packs of coffee and they are expensive.

Thanks for all the replys...I can't beleive how popular this topic was! You have all been a great help! Maybe some day I will get a pot but right now I can't justify it.
:hatsoff:

 

[vradin]

Maybe some day I will get a pot but right now I can't justify it.

Check the second hand and church thrift stores. I see older perc pots there all the time, and the yuppies haven't discovered them for decorations yet, so they're still pretty cheap for one in good condition.

 

[pasmokepole]

Brits drink tea - no blue-blooded "American" colonialist would be caught dead drink from the Kings cup. (I know we DID drink tea but it would be like going to Kentucky and drinking Vodka insteed of Whiskey)

 

Brits drink tea - no blue-blooded "American" colonialist would be caught dead drink from the Kings cup.

It all depends on the time period you reenact.

 

[Walks Alone]

When I go on treks or over night camps where trying to be more primitive is wanted, I carry my original Pima cooking basket and stones. It works for boiling water or cooking broth, stew, porage, rice, hominy, etc equally well, and is water tight. Simply heat up the stones in the fire's coals, then drop them in. Mine's only about 5 1/2" in diameter by 2 1/2 deep, so is best for individual use, and the size makes it easy to carry in a haversack or even belt bag. I have light weight leather stash bags I made for both the basket and the rocks that nestle together fine with a small hammer forged skillet I also carry and its survived a lot of useage. And its fast and easy to clean up to get back on the trail.

In my case, for coffee I heat the water in the basket then add it to my tin cup with coarse grounds. In a couple of minutes I just add a very small amout of cool water, the grounds sink and its ready to drink. More or less duplicates coffee done French Press style like i do at home (most who have tried it agree its the very best brewed coffee).

I realize that original cooking basket are rare, even more so when they have the original stones with them as well like mine does. But I have seen them in my western travels a few times over the years that a person could add stones to. Maybe some tribes even still make some for the tourist trade - I don't know.

I have no idea if there use would be considered PC or not (and don't care personally), but can say that mine draws a lot of attention whenever a new person see's me using it for the first time though.

 

[Homesteader]

The group of reenactors I first got to know in Ohio, way back when, used to put their ground coffee into a sock and then steep it in anything that would boil water. It was actually pretty good.

Gawd, now that I think back on it I sure hope those were CLEAN socks!!

Maybe that's what gave those cups that special flavor... :hmm:

 

[Tamora Rademacher]

I have a friend of mine that camps from January to October. She makes her own "folgers pre-packs". Just takes two round pieces of left over muslin from her sewing, sews them together by machine, leaving a little spot open to put the ground coffee in, fills the bags and finises them off either by hand or machine. She makes them for the regular sized coffee pots.

Those work pretty well but I like to take a good sized coffee pot - not extgra large but large, take a half a pound of whole beans, fill it the rest of the way with water and put it over the fire at night. Don't let it boil, just simmer. Let it sit all night over the fire, warm up in the morning, drink on it all day. Each night, fill up the same pot, beans and all with water (don't dump anything out, leftover coffee or beans) and let it sit overnight. warm it up every morning. It will last about a week at rondy and taste pretty darn good.

The first pot I made, I dumped in the whole pound of beans. I use decaf coffee (you don't want me on caffeine!). I offered up my coffee as a friend wandered by. He said that coffee made him wake up better than any he has ever had (didn't know it was decaf!).