There are a lot of things to love about waking up in the backcountry. Drinking instant coffee, however, isn鈥檛 one of them. Even听weight weenies are willing to pack their travel-sized French presses if it means avoiding instant coffee.
But now you may not have to settle for more weight or less quality coffee.听A Kickstarter campaign for promises听better backcountry brew and has nature-loving coffee fiends fanaticizing about fully caffeinated mornings.
鈥淲hen we go camping, my sister-in-law always buys Nescafe, and it sucks,鈥 says Jeff Wiguna, cofounder of Kuju. 鈥淵ou live in San Francisco听long enough, you start to become particular about your coffee.鈥澨齇n a recent trip to Red Rock Canyon, outside of Las Vegas, Wiguna and his brother, Justin, found themselves sipping the听wretched cup of instant coffee Wiguna's sister-in-law packed,听thinking there must be a better way.听They devised Kuju, which is a simple pouch filter, preloaded with high quality ground coffee beans, that sits snugly on top of your cup. It comes neatly folded in a small package with a tear-away top.
Kuju鈥檚 filters are filled with coffee from small independent growers, rather than the beans of a big commercial coffee brand. 鈥淚t was a long process to select the blends,鈥 Wiguna says. After the arduous task of taste-testing many quality coffees, the siblings settled on blends that lean heavily on South American, Sumatran, and Ethiopian beans.听
Kuju鈥檚 PourOver product will launch with three options: a medium, a bold, and a decaf blend. Wiguna says they chose to skip the light and sour offerings since those blends can be sensitive to imperfect water or brewing technique. 鈥淭hese deeper flavors will fill your mouth and your palate even in suboptimal brewing conditions鈥濃攍ike using too-hot or too-cool water.听
Currently, due to tiny seams of glue in the filter, the product isn鈥檛 compostable. However a brew-and-bury option is something the brothers are working on for the future. For now, the package acts as a small trash receptacle for packing out the used filter.
Should Kuju reach its Kickstarter goal, the company should begin shipping filters to backers by January of 2016.