8 Best Instant Coffee for Camping

The best cup in this group comes out of the smallest jar. Nescafé Gold Espresso Blonde is an instant espresso rather than a spoon-it-and-hope granule, and a teaspoon in two ounces of hot water gives you a rounded shot with a light crema on top — the sort of thing we expected to be a gimmick and came away convinced by. If coffee is the reason you get out of the tent, this is the jar we point you to.

It’s the most flexible pick here too. Hot water makes an Americano, cold milk makes an iced latte, and it dissolves in both without a gritty edge; the texture is where it wins, smooth and creamy rather than sharp. You also control the strength properly, because nothing is pre-portioned.

The catch is arithmetic. The jar holds 3.5 ounces and makes up to 50 espressos at the listed dose of a teaspoon per two ounces, but a normal camp mug takes three or four spoons, so a jar empties faster than the cup count suggests. It wants a spoon and a level spot, neither of which is guaranteed on a tent floor. For a two-night trip with a proper breakfast, we take it anyway.

Dark, properly bitter, and strong enough to get you out of a sleeping bag: Clásico is the boldest cup in this set. A rounded teaspoon in six ounces of hot water gives you something with real weight to it, and it doesn’t turn thin when you add milk — which is more than we can say for most of the mild blends here.

The jar is the other half of the story. Ten and a half ounces makes up to 150 cups at the listed ratio, which covers a long weekend for four people without a resupply, and the glass jar is sturdy enough to live in a car boot between trips. It makes good iced coffee as well, so it doesn’t become a winter-only purchase.

So this is the jar we hand to the group at basecamp: the strongest, most forgiving coffee here for people who take it black and want it to do something. It is not the one for a backpack — a full jar is a lot of glass and coffee to carry on foot — and that’s the whole trade.

Folgers Classic Roast is the cheapest cup in this group, and it earns its place by being the least fussy. The 8-ounce jar makes cup after cup at about a teaspoon each, the granules dissolve in hot water without much stirring, and the flavor is the smooth, familiar one that has been on kitchen shelves for decades — not subtle, but never harsh. It works iced too, which matters in August.

This is our pick for a car-camping weekend where coffee is fuel rather than a hobby, and for anyone feeding a family on a budget. The limit is the container: an 8-ounce jar is bulky for a pack, so it belongs in the car kit or decanted into something smaller. Buy it for the price and the reliability, not for a memorable cup.

Folgers Singles are not really instant. Each one is a paper bag of ground coffee that you steep like a tea bag for a few minutes, which is why they sit in the also-consider list rather than at the top of this article.

What you get for the wait is more body than any powder here: a cup with actual brewed weight to it, and strength you control by how long you leave the bag in. A bag is generous enough to make a second, weaker cup afterwards, so the 19-count box stretches further than the number suggests.

What you give up is speed and tidiness. The bag needs a few minutes in water that is properly hot, and then a wet bag has to go somewhere — into your trash, not the fire. What you don’t get is grounds in the bottom of the mug, which is the trade that makes these camp-friendly in the first place.

For a slow morning at a stove-side camp, with time to sit and a trash bag handy, these make the fullest-bodied cup in the article. For a cold trailhead and a hurry, take a stick instead — this is the one pick here that asks something of you.

The jar is the better deal of the two Mount Hagen formats here. It holds 3.53 ounces, makes about 50 cups, and costs about what the 25-stick box does — twice the coffee for the same money, if you have a spoon and a few spare ounces in the pack. At a basecamp where we’re making rounds for three people, this is the version we bring.

Scooping gives you control the packets don’t: a heaped spoon for a cold morning, a level one for the friend who likes it weak, and no foil to deal with. The coffee is the same organic, Fair Trade, freeze-dried blend, low in acidity and smooth rather than sharp, and the granules go into solution without much of a fight even when the water has gone lukewarm.

The jar itself is the cost. It’s glass with a lid that feels lighter than the coffee inside deserves, and it’s one more hard object in a pack. But if you’re driving to a site and drinking two cups a morning, the arithmetic is hard to argue with.

Three small tins, up to 105 cups between them, and a medium roast that tastes closer to brewed coffee than most powders manage: Starbucks Premium Instant is the premium option in this article, and the one we keep for a trip where the coffee is part of the point.

The tins earn their keep. Each is small enough to sit upright in a food bag, the lid reseals properly, and the fine grind dissolves quickly in hot water or cold milk. The flavor is a proper medium roast — chocolate and nuts, medium body — and it holds up to milk without going watery. It also takes a heaped spoon without turning harsh, so you can make it as strong as you like.

What you accept is the up-front spend and the bulk: three tins is more than one person needs for a weekend, so the sensible way to use it is one tin per trip and the rest in the cupboard. If you already like the Starbucks medium roast, that’s an easy season of good camp coffee.

This isn’t black coffee and it isn’t pretending to be. Maxwell House’s vanilla caramel latte mix is a sweet, creamy cafe-style powder that goes into hot water or hot milk and comes out frothy — closer to hot chocolate than to the cup that gets you moving in the morning. It’s a drink mix rather than a coffee, and it’s happiest treated that way.

It mixes with a stir rather than a whisk, and it doesn’t need milk to turn creamy, which matters when the cool box stayed home. The vanilla and caramel are forward but not syrupy, and there’s real coffee under the sweetness rather than pure candy.

What it isn’t good for is the morning. If you want a plain, strong cup before a hike, this will disappoint you, and it says so on the canister if you read past the picture.

Where it earns its place is the evening: a warm, sweet drink in a flask while the temperature drops, made with nothing but hot water and a spoon. A spoonful stirred into a plain black cup also softens it, which is one way to stretch a canister between two people.