Category Archives: Travels with my Coffee

A series of posts about where I take my coffee on my travels: beaches, mountains, deserts, you name it, I’ve (probably) taken my coffee there, just so that I can be sure of a good cup or two.

Travels with my Coffee: North Wales 2021

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My Global WAKEcup looks east along Llyn Ogwen in Snowdonia on a sunny Sunday in September.As you’re probably aware, Travels with my Coffee follows me and my coffee around various photogenic parts of the world. Typically these are non-UK locations (the previous one was Iceland, from July this year), but last weekend (and this) Amanda and I have been travelling around North Wales and, unsurprisingly, our coffee has been coming with us.

This is Amanda’s first time west of Holywell, the small town where I was born and grew up, so while (almost) everything is familiar to me, it’s all new to Amanda, who has been delighted with both the scenery and the history. For my part, I never tire of exploring North Wales, although this is the first time I’ve been this way for many years, so you’re going to be seeing a few bonus North Wales Coffee Spots.

When I wasn’t playing tour guide, I was busy taking photographs of my coffee, mostly my Global WAKECup, although my HuskeeCup also had a day out (other reusable cups are available). This was partly because it was Zero Waste Week (which ended yesterday) and, to mark the occasion, the Coffee Spot and Global WAKEcup are running a giveaway (details at the end of the post).

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Travels with my Coffee: Iceland 2021

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Our Espro Travel Presses (mine, in red, on the left, Amanda's, in blue on the right) overlook the Gullfoss waterfalls in Iceland, with my HuskeeCup sandwiched between them.After an 18 month hiatus, Travels with my Coffee, the series where I take my coffee to all the best places, is back, visiting its most northerly location yet. As you probably know, Amanda and I went to Iceland last month, spending much of our time wandering around the capital, Reykjavik, where there are plenty of speciality coffee shops (and some excellent museums and restaurants which we also visited). The weather was a bit grim for the early part of the trip, but when it lifted, we managed to get out of the city on a couple of day trips, plus we took the ferry to Viðey, a small island in the bay.

Naturally, our coffee came with us, Amanda and I each owning a Travel Press (Amanda’s is fancier than mine, so now I have Travel Press envy). We’d also each brought our travelling coffee kit, which we didn’t use that much on account of the aforementioned speciality coffee shops providing most of our coffee needs. However, we did have breakfast in our hotel room a couple of times, as well as afternoon coffee and pastries. The unquestionable highlight though, was having coffee overlooking a live volcanic eruption!

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Travels with my Coffee: USA 2020

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My Travel Press and Therma Cup overlook Phoenix from the Ridge Line Trail along South Mountain.Welcome to the first (and, as it turned out, last) Travels with my Coffee of 2020, the series where I take my coffee to all the best places, particularly when there are no speciality coffee shops to be found. Last year, my coffee did very well, going on a road trip through Arizona & New Mexico, spending a month in Shanghai and another five weeks in the USA, before going on a second road trip, this time in the south of Ireland. We’ll see if this year is as eventful.

It got off to a good start as I flew to San Jose, spending a week in the Bay Area, with day trips to San Francisco and Oakland. From there, I flew to Phoenix, where I spent a week (work again) before touring northern Arizona the following week. After that, I flew across the USA from Phoenix to Portland (Maine) via Atlanta to spend a weekend with Amanda, then flew home from Boston.

As ever, I was joined by my trusty travelling coffee kit, which saved me from plenty of bad office coffee, while my Travel Press and three of my reusable cups had some adventures along the way, particularly during the week in northern Arizona.

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Travels with my Coffee: Ireland 2019

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My Travel Press, at a stop on the southern part of the Ring of Kerry, overlooking Abbey Island with the Lambs Head headland beyond that, and, in the far distance, the Bere Peninsular.Welcome to another Travels with my Coffee, where I take my coffee to all the best places, particularly when there are no speciality coffee shops to be found. This is the fourth Travels with my Coffee this year, following on from my road trip through Arizona & New Mexico in January, a trip to Shanghai in March and five weeks in the USA in May.

This time I’m a little closer to home in Ireland. Although it’s my fourth time in Ireland, I’ve never before ventured south of the line between Galway (on the west coast) and Dublin (on the east). This trip was specifically designed to rectify this oversight, starting last Friday when I flew to Dublin. I immediately drove south to spend the weekend in the Wicklow Mountains before carrying on to Cork via Waterford. This was very much the specialty coffee part of the trip, with visits to Arch Coffee (Waterford) and Dukes Coffee Company, Three Fools Coffee and Filter (all in Cork). From there, I went west to Killarney, spent a day driving around the Ring of Kerry, then headed north to Galway for a couple of days before completing the loop by returning Dublin yesterday evening.

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Travels with my Coffee: USA 2019

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My Therma Cup and Travel Press take in the views of the Golden Gate Bridge and, in the fog on the other side, northern San Francisco on their way to hiking in Muir Woods, April 2019.Welcome to another in my new series, Travels with my Coffee, where I take my coffee to all the best places, particularly when there are no speciality coffee shops to be found. This is the third Travels with my Coffee of 2019, which got off to a good start with my road trip through Arizona & New Mexico in January, followed by a trip to Shanghai in March.

Today it’s the turn of the five-week trip I took to the USA in April, which turned out to be a bit of an epic journey, starting in New Orleans and ending at the opposite end of the country in Chicago. In between, however, I flew to Los Angeles, took the train to San Jose, spent two weeks in the Bay Area, then took the train all the way to Chicago!

As ever, I was joined by my trusty Travel Press, Aergrind and Therma Cup. I also brought, for the first time ever, my rCup, a new reusable cup made from recycled paper coffee cups, which I’d picked up at the London Coffee Festival shortly before leaving on the trip, which doubled as a test-drive for the rCup.

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Travels with my Coffee: Zhujiajiao & Hangzhou, 2019

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My coffee, in the shape of my Global WAKEcup and Espro Therma Pres, overlook the West Lake in Hangzhou from the Fair Rainbow Bridge on a recent trip to China.Welcome to the third in my new series, Travels with my Coffee, where I take my coffee to all the best places, particularly when there are no speciality coffee shops to be found. So far I’ve covered my trip around Florida and Phoenix at the start of 2018 and my road trip through Arizona & New Mexico at the start of this year. Now it’s the turn of my trip to Shanghai back in March.

I’ve already written about one of the finds of that trip, my new gooseneck pouring jug, which has fundamentally changed how I make filter coffee on the go. I also tried a new (for me) pour-over method, the all-in-one filter bag. You’ll see how that went later on.

Although I was in Shanghai for a month, it was mostly for work and I didn’t have much opportunity to leave the city for a variety of reasons. However, towards the end of the trip, I did manage to get out and about, first to the ancient water town of Zhujiajiao, then further afield to the nearby city of Hangzhou. Naturally, I took my coffee, in particular my Travel Press, Global WAKEcup and Therma Cup, with me.

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Travels with my Coffee: Arizona & New Mexico, 2019

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My Therma Cup and Travel Press look across Apache Lake, one of several reservoirs on the Salt River as it flows through the Superstition Mountains east of Phoenix.Regular readers know that having good coffee on my travels, particularly when there are no speciality coffee shops, is important to me. I’ve written about my travelling coffee kit, and also documented making coffee on planes and at airports, making long journeys bearable. At the start of last year, I wrote Travels with my Coffee: Part I, which documented, from the perspective of all the places I took my coffee, my trip around Florida and Phoenix.

The title, with its “Part I”, implied that there would be a Part II (possibly more), but the year went by and although I took plenty of photos, time got the better of me, and I never did write up Part II. However, this year started off with a flurry of travel, with three month-long trips, first to the US, then to China, and now back in the US, so I thought it high time that I continued Travels with my Coffee, beginning with this post. This covers the first of this year’s trips, an extensive road trip around southern Arizona and New Mexico. As you’ll see, with good coffee shops in short supply, my Travel Press and Therma Cup saw plenty of use.

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Travels with my Coffee: Florida & Arizona, 2018

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My Travel Press and Therma Cup stand in awe at the magnificence of Courthouse Butte in Red Rock Country, Arizona.If you have been paying attention on social media (or indeed, reading my posts!) you’ll know that for the last four weeks, I’ve been travelling around the USA, first in Florida/Miami, then in Phoenix/Arizona. In the past, I’ve written about my travelling coffee kit and I’ve also written extensively about making coffee on planes and at airports, which makes the long journeys bearable.

On this trip, I’ve been doing a lot of touring, which means not that many visits to speciality coffee shops along the way. In the past, this has meant either not having coffee or having to put up with bad hotel coffee in the morning and bad diner coffee during the day. However, since getting my Travel Press, all that has changed.

The Travel Press has meant that I can make coffee in the morning and take it with me. Then I began to get a bit obsessed (me? no! surely not!) It started with a trip to the Grand Canyon where I took a photo of my Travel Press and Therma Cup overlooking the canyon, then last year I took a picture of them on the Great Wall of China. Then it got out of hand… Continue reading →