How to Make Better Hotel Room Coffee

 

By Dave from Airport Direct.

Don’t worry, this is not the pour-over method. This trick is quicker than using the hotel room coffee maker, and tastes so much better.

I’m sure not many people are big fans of the cheap hotel room coffee maker, I myself included. The coffee tastes either super stale, or super watery. But what choice do we really have? To get better coffee in a hotel room we usually either have to go to a cafe somewhere, or order from a delivery app and wait. But there’s a faster and more convenient way to do it. Over my years of travelling and staying at hundreds of different hotels , I’ve discovered a simple way to make superb quality coffee within 4 minutes inside your own hotel room.

1. To do this, you will need to pack two simple and portable items: A small plastic pour-over coffee funnel (don’t worry, this is not the pour-over coffee method), and a paper filter for your pour-over funnel. Pictured below is the pour-over funnel I use. it is small, lightweight, and portable enough that I can just pop it inside my carry-on bag:

 

2. Next, boil 1-2 cups of water using either the hotel room kettle or coffee maker’s boil-water function.

3. Take a hotel room mug, and empty a packet of ground coffee into it. Pour 1 cup of boiling water into the mug just like you would making an instant coffee. Stir 2 times. Let the coffee mixture brew inside the mug for about 3 minutes.

4. While you wait for the brewing, prepare the pour-over filter and the pour-over funnel over an empty hotel mug (usually they provide 2 mugs in the room). After 3 minutes of brewing, pour the coffee mixture from the first mug into the second mug with the pour-over rig over it. And that’s it! All the coffee will trickle down into the empty mug within a minute, and that cup of coffee is going to be one of the best coffee you’ll ever have tasted.

Cleanup is super easy. Simply place the pour-over cone (with the used filter still inside) over the bathroom sink hole. Pour a bit of water into the brewing mug until all of the coffee grounds come lose inside of it, and then pour the mixture into the pour-over funnel. The liquid will drain down the sink, while the pour-over filter will catch all of the grounds and coffee oil. Throw out the filter with all the grounds, and then rinse your pour over funnel.

The science behind it is quite simple: good tasting coffee requires the right amount of time to brew. For the typical medium-roast, medium-ground coffee packets found inside hotels, 3 minutes is the perfect time to brew it. Under 3 mins. you will get a sour tasting coffee, and over 3 mins. you’ll get a bitter coffee. The coffee brewed using my method is very rich, deep and clean, because it takes all the benefits of the French press method by giving it enough brewing time, while allowing for a clean filtration and less oily coffee by taking all the benefits of the pour-over method. The easy cleanup is also a huge advantage over any other methods, therefore making it a great way to make better tasting coffee while travelling.