AeroPress GO travel coffee maker review: makes coffee, espresso or cold brew and is light enough for backpacking

AeroPress GO travel coffee maker: first impressions

The Aeropress GO takes all the advantages of its larger predecessor and packs them into a compact package that’s around the size of a travel mug and can be taken on the road – even fitting in a backpack for those unwilling to sacrifice coffee for trail time. Like the larger model, this camping coffee maker is part-pour over and part-press, with three main components: a chamber that sits on top of your coffee cup, a filter cap that screws into it and a plunger. It comes with some extras like a coffee scoop, stirrer and mug, but you can easily leave those at home if you’re traveling light and just use your best camping mug.

If you need a jolt of energy in the morning, simply place a paper filter into the filter cap, screw it on the chamber and place it on top of the cup. Add coffee and water and gently press the plunger down and you’ll be breathing in the sweet scent of delicious coffee in 20 seconds. This brilliant device brews American and latte style coffee and even a fine cup of cold brew, and none of it is bitter-tasting or acidic. You can only brew one cup at a time, but since cleanup involves unscrewing the filter cap and popping the coffee grounds out, you’ll be ready to brew the next cup in seconds.

Though this device does require special paper filters, it comes with 350 of them to start. You’ll love this coffee maker for backpacking, car camping and any time you have to travel somewhere that great coffee isn’t guaranteed.

AeroPress GO travel coffee maker: round the campfire

Since I already own the larger sized AeroPress coffee maker and I know what delicious, smooth, non-bitter coffee it makes, I was hugely excited to get my hands on the travel sized version. While the larger version isn’t actually large and it definitely portable for car camping, I’m usually the only one drinking coffee on my camping trips so it seems a but unnecessary, plus I was curious to see if I could find one that works for backpacking.

Turns out that the AeroPress GO fulfills all my needs. It’s exactly the same set up – add paper filter, screw filter cap to chamber, place chamber on mug, add water and coffee and plunge. The whole process takes under a minute and you get consistently excellent coffee. The major difference of course is the size. This whole deal packs away to about the size of a travel coffee mug, and while it comes with handy extras like a scoop, stirrer and its own mug, for backpacking I leave these behind to lighten the load even more. The size also makes it feel a bit more stable during the plunging process than the larger model, though I still like an extra hand if trying to operate this on uneven ground.

One minor grip: as you well know, a cup of coffee only tastes as good as the mug its served in and for some reason the particular mug this one comes with isn’t especially pleasing to drink out of. It’s somehow too large and plastic and ridged. But obviously I just brought my own favorite camping mug so this isn’t really a problem. Like the larger model, you do have to use special paper filters with this coffee maker which does reduce the value of this coffee maker over time, but for ease of use and quality of coffee, it’s still hard to beat.

Here’s how it performed:

Coffee

Beautiful coffee every time that is neither acidic nor bitter.

Ease of use

Very easy to set up, use and clean.

Durability

This is a robust, plastic design.

Portability

Pretty light and packs down to about the size of a travel mug – if you can’t live without good coffee you could take this backpacking.

Capacity

It brews eight ounces, so it’s really best for one person though you can easily get two espressos out of one brew.

Value 

This is about the same price as the larger version, so you pay a little extra for the convenience, but you won’t balk at the price for great coffee.