For those of you who bring ground coffee or loose leaf tea with you on your travels, what container do you use for them?
I've tried brown coffee bags but they loose freshness quickly. I've also tried keeping them in their original containers but they, at times, spill out.
For those of you who bring and enjoy instant coffee, good for you. It's not an option for me.
I could bring tea bags but if I can get good loose leaf tea, I prefer it.
A small tin with tight fitting lid, inside a ziplock bag. If I’m feeling doubtful about the tin, I put masking tape around the lid joint.
I've put it in zip lock bags before and it's done well. No spillage at any rate. In fact, I've been carrying some around with me now in a sturdy zip lock, and it's still intact after 13 days. I keep it in a fabric pouch to make sure there's not too much light exposure.
If I'm not tight on space, I put it in a tin as mentioned above but tape it shut to make sure the lid doesn't come off.
ETA: I don't usually travel with loose leaf tea, but I have a container at home I keep my loose leave tea in that I think would be great for travel. I have two and bought them from Stash, but they don't carry them anymore. However, I've seen them other places. They're not overly large but should hold 200g of tea. I would put them in a large pouch or sealed bag to protect them, though. https://www.onsullivan.com/products/brocade-peony-tea-canister
I am quite sensitive to caffeine and drink 1/2 and 1/2 at home, so I carry a ziplock bag with decaf to mix with the caff coffee that is usually in my AirBnB. I use a bag that has a slider to close, not the kind where you press the top together to snap. Those are not secure enough for me.
You could use the heavier duty ziploc freezer bags (quart or gallon size) and double bag it for less chance of spillage. I don’t carry coffee or loose tea, but this has worked well for powdered laundry detergent. And it gets smaller as you go along and use up the contents, unlike a rigid container.
My husband always travels with his own fresh ground coffee. He packs the original bag the coffee comes in and puts it in a ziplock bag. He also brings his own paper filters and a small, collapsible pour over coffee dripper used for backpacking. The only thing he needs is a kettle and cup in the hotel room. It always smells so good!
I tend not to carry tea or coffee on our travels, tending to go with whatever is available where we are headed, although more often than not I tend to avoid tea when I’m outside the U.K., unless it’s something like the Asian green teas, or chai, which is so different to tea as I understand it, it counts as a separate drink.
However on a recent trip to Italy both Julie and myself were both carrying small cartons of Yorkshire tea. Our friends who are ‘inter railing’ round Europe and have been away from home for weeks, going on months, we’re meeting us in Italy and sent us this message on our WhatsApp group “can the Yorkshire contingent bring some decent tea out with them as we’re (expletive deleted) sick of Liptons tea bags”! Of course we were happy to oblige!
About coffee on trips: I like coffee an hour before breakfast, and at other times of course. I carry the Wacaco Nanopresso that lets you use either ground coffee or, with an adapter, the smaller type of coffee pods. Carrying ground is messy, so I caved in and now I carry a supply of pods, shame on me. A few brands are quite good. That does it, together with a dual-voltage heater coil and a heatproof multi-purpose mug, anywhere I can plug in or get boiling water. The coil and mug also work for tea, Ramen, soup, hot chocolate...
Thanks all.
I've traveled with ground coffee in a ziploc but it seemed to take on a slight plasticy taste.
I've been putting the coffee in brown coffee bags that I got on Amazon and put those bags in a ziploc. (Mostly because I sometime tear the bag the coffee comes in and then it spills unless I transfer it to the brown bags.)
I have numerous travel/camping type coffee filters with two more being delivered tomorrow. (Although I won't see them until next week when I get back to the US.) I have both the type that takes filters and those that have fine mesh filters built in.
For the Yorkshire tea drinkers. I've really come to love Yorkshire Gold loose tea. I like strong tea and if I have to use tea bags, I usually use two at a time.
In UK and Europe, you can buy coffee pods designed to fit into espresso machines (not Nespresso type pods).
We have a travel cafetiere and these work really well.
There are a number of containers, basically plastic with screw lids, that seal tightly and preserve the coffee. Some even have press pumps to create a vacuum, if you are really serious. A simple search like "Travel container for ground coffee" (or beans) will bring up a dozen or so. These would keep better than a ziploc, more durable, but maybe bulkier, or at least not "squishable".
Not sure your experience, but ground coffee often gets picked up in security as a suspicious material. It just has that right density and form as, well, use your imagination. My wife and I have been stopped a time or two, and the TSA guy once commented that it is usually coffee.
For tea (loose leaf, which I buy from Fortnum & Mason when I am in the UK), I do pretty much as Accidental Southerner does, but I am probably dealing with much smaller quantities than you are because I am only traveling a few days up to — at the very most — two weeks at a time.
Somebody once gave us a gift set of mini Kusmi teas, and I kept the tins and simply stuck stickers on the top of each one to label which tea is inside. I put a rubber band around the tin, but also put the whole thing inside a snack-size ziploc.
Edit to add: according to the original label on my mini Kusmi tea tin, the tin originally held 25 g of tea. The big regular Kusmi tea tins hold 125 g of tea.
The gift set someone gave us was something like this. Years ago ! This is from the French site but hopefully you can find the equivalent on the UK site.
https://www.kusmitea.com/fr/coffret-les-thes-noirs-bio-avec-une-pince-a-the-21186A1150.html
I buy Starbucks' little packets of instant coffee and I keep them in a Ziploc baggie. It's worked for me for several trips. Of course, you pointed out that you don't like instant coffee.
I buy 12-oz foil bags of Community Dark and Bold Intense or Signature Blend. You just roll the top a few times and keep it closed with the wire tabs on each side. The foil is thick enough to not tear. If I wanted double insurance on spillage, I'd either use a strip of tape or put the foil bag in a ziploc bag.
