What’s 50 grams, starts off as a no-bypass style brewer (eventually it allows some bypass, with age), and folds smaller and flatter than a pair of socks for super easy travel and backpacking options?
Why it’s the Expedition Brewer, from Native Designs (owned by Doubleshot Coffee Company). And this is our mini review of this travel / ultralight pour over brewer.
The Expedition Brewer was born out of tinkering by Doubleshot Coffee’s Brian Franklin in his own travel expeditions. Originally made out of leather and a cut out Nalgene bottle for the cone shape, it evolved into a wonderfully rustic canvas material with copper rivets, a flexible (and flatten-able) copper cone insert, and a wood stand.
The way it folds flat allows you to store as many Hario V60 #2 paper filters as you reasonably want inside of it, and you can even bring along a compact folding-cover scale (the kinds drug dealers use, but are also well suited for coffee use). The entire thing (without paper filters) weighs just 50 grams.
The $49 Expedition Brewer comes in five colours: Pine, Royal Blue, Sand, Black and Ruby (a bright magenta colour). It includes the outer holder / form that is buckled to contain the other parts; an inner, lay-flat copper cone (also riveted), and the wood base to sit on top of your mug or coffee server.
Folded flat, it measures 180mm by 115mm (7” x 4.5”), and is only 12mm (.5”) thick.
This is our Snapshot Review of the travel brewer.
There’s no “test rules book” for this kind of brewer, and being a Snapshot Review (formerly, this was a blog-posted “mini review”, we did the review informally overall.
That said, we did put the brewer up against some competitor devices, including the GSI Ultralight Outdoors Java Drip ($11), and side by side tasting with a traditional V60 system and based our review results on those tests and head to head comparisons.
Rustic. That was my first thought when seeing the way Native Designs packages and parcels out the Expedition Brewer. You get this little square of something, covered with brown tissue paper tied up with twine in a bow tie. Presentation is nice, and I think it provides some signals as to what the product is.
Open it up, and the rustic / hipster vibe continues. We got three different colours of the Expedition Brewer (Sand, Ruby and Black) to try out, and my main testing and focus is with the Sand version, the first one I opened up. It is really a compact and lightweight package, and at first, I wasn’t entirely sure why it had external flaps and snaps (this was soon figured out, read on).
The edges of the canvas are not serged or in any way sealed: it is just a straight cut of material. Long term, this may be a problem with fraying, so keep that in mind.
When I first saw photos of the Expedition Brewer, I thought it had a nice leather edging to the canvas; turns out it is the flat-fold inner copper cone, sticking above the canvas slightly. Also tucked into the canvas cloth brewer is the wood stand it sits in when opened, and a single Hario V60 paper filter.
The canvas outer brewer is “stitched” together with five copper rivets. The two flaps have copper buttons at their ends. The interior copper sleeve is also sealed into a cone shape with 3 copper rivets. The laminate wood base looks to have its edge finished or “burned in” to give a nice finish effect.
Depending on the colour brewer you get, you will end up with a lighter or darker wood choice for the coffee maker’s stand.
Overall, it seems a simple package, and at just 50g (not including a paper filter) a very nice and compact one. I found myself especially intrigued with the copper inner sleeve, and what would happen to it down the road…
The Copper Insert
Removing the copper insert from the Expedition Brewer
Also, it turns out that having flaps and buttons to close the flaps is a good thing with this brewer. It keeps the copper sleeve in place during travel, as well as keeping paper filters secure. Franklin also travels with a little pocket gram scale with a closing lid, that also slots into this brewer nicely with the flaps closed and secured, giving him that additional tool in the good pour over coffee arsenal.
Expedition Brewer Set Up for Use
The Expedition Brewer with the V60 Paper Filter in place.
The flaps seem to get in the way a bit when the brewer is in use, as the canvas material is fairly stiff. With age and use, the canvas will soften, and this should become less of an issue.
It is very easy to get the Expedition Brewer dirty; I got some coffee grounds and coffee brew on the canvas in my first four or five brews, by accident. It can lead to the “rustic charm” of the device, but if you’re someone who wants their gear to look pristine constantly, be aware.
Different Woods
Different types of wood depending on the colour brewer you buy.
I also noticed that the bottom portion of the canvas would get wet and stained a bit with brewed coffee after a few uses. This is because of liquid’s ability to adhere to surface walls and actually defy gravity, being pushed up surface walls in fractions of millimeter volumes via the push weight of the liquid being added to the surface.
What happens is, as you brew coffee and the liquid comes out of the paper filter where the copper sleeve bottom hole is, some liquid adheres to the copper sleeve and starts climbing back up the exterior of the sleeve, eventually reaching the canvas material that sits about 5mm upwards.
Isn’t liquid’s surface dynamics magical? 🙂 Again, this is really only a problem if you like your gear to stay pristine. I would not wash these canvas brewers, because they would absolutely fray if you did.
Three Colours
Three colours of the Expedition Brewer. Note the staining on the tan model, the one we used most for our testing.
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I ended up doing about 30 brews with the Expedition Brewer before starting this mini review, and in short, I quite like this product.
I have this plastic and nylon foldy brewer by GSI ($13CAD at MEC) that clips onto your coffee cup, which was my previous “ultralight” paper filter pour over coffee brewer (it’s also lighter – it weighs only 15g); but I never quite liked using that much, even with a Melitta #2 filter. Because it’s all nylon and plastic, and I couldn’t even tell if it was BPA free or not.
GSI Ultralight
The $13 GSI Brewer is the lightest pourover brewing device you can buy at 15g, but it is a lot of nylon and plastics, and really can't do more than 250-300ml of coffee.
The Expedition Brewer may weigh 3x as much as that plastic contraption, but you get a lot more for the extra 35g. It has some substance to it, and you can still handle or further shape the outer canvas sleeve even as coffee is brewing: it doesn’t get overly hot from the brewing happening inside.
I did have some concerns about raw copper being in contact with brewing coffee. So I talked to a friend who has a background in coffee science and engineering about it (Bill Crossland). Crossland assured me there was no issue, and that the brewed coffee would also keep the interior copper shiny and patina free through micro-abrasion action (a patina would develop on the outside of the copper sheet, he said).
Typically I would brew into a glass carafe with this brewer, but it was when I took it on an actual trip that I realised the Expedition Brewer has another flaw. I noticed when I was brewing straight into a 300ml coffee mug, the V60 paper filter sits very deep down into the cup: around 6-8cm.
This means for the last portion of a 250-300ml brew, your brewed, filtered coffee is in contact with the paper filter and the coffee slurry being held back by the paper filter from your cup. Not a fan of that. It got to the point where I’d find some kind of spacer to use to sit on top of my coffee mug, elevating the Expedition Brewer about 3-5cm above the cup.
Brewer in Action
The brewer in action. Note how low the V60 paper filter sits into the carafe. This is a design flaw that I think can be fixed in future versions.
I feel this could be very easily remedied by decreasing the diameter of the outer sleeve’s exit hole by about 1cm, and also making the copper inner sleeve a bit longer with a smaller hole at the bottom. A good target would be to have no more than 1” (2.5cm) of the filter hanging below the wood stand. It’s not a major gripe, but it is an area for improvement.
I also noted the main unit I used the most – the tan one, picked up visible coffee stains and there is some increased fraying already on some of the cut edges of the canvas material. If you’re particularly rough with your gear when out doing extreme hiking and travel, this fraying could become an issue.
Lastly, the price: it’s not cheap, at $49. You can get an AeroPress for $15 less. But it is handmade, locally made in the USA, and very well put together. There’s also the cost of the materials to consider: copper’s not getting any cheaper, for example.
Still, at $49, I feel you should expect a bit more from this device. Specifically, Native Designs should really serge or finish off the edges of the canvas material. Maybe more than one or two filters included would be nice as well.
The Expedtiion Brewer
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This Expedition Brewer by Native Designs is a very nice, unique and ultralight V60 brewer for travel, backpacking, and long distance bicycle or hiking trips. At 50g, it’s not the lightest pourover device out there (the 15g GSI Ultralight Java Drip is) but the Expedition brewer is made with better materials if you have any concerns at all about plastics and nylon touching your brewed coffee. Also very much handmade, which reflects in the price.
You also get the benefit of the copper sleeve which allows for no-bypass brewing, improving the extraction ratio for your coffee while out in the wild.
It does have advantages over the GSI in other ways. You can do fairly large flow through brews with the Expedition brewer, something that’s a lot more difficult to do with the clip on nylon GSI. I brewed 600ml of coffee with the Expedition (using 40g of ground coffee) on several occasions and it handled the job just fine. Pack a plastic / ceramic hand mill grinder, and your ultralight cook camp kit, and you can have fantastic coffee in the middle of nowhere.
The price could be better, but I’ve also seen more expensive hand made specialty products for ultralight travel. I think for $50, Native Designs might want to consider finishing the edges of the brewer. Also maybe toss in 25 filters as a little bonus when you buy one, to make the buyer feel like they are getting a bit of a perk thrown in with the brewer.
All in all, we give this 3.4 stars out of 5. Gains some pointage on brewing output and the unique materials used, and loses a bit for the price and how low it sits in the mug.
A neat little travel brewer that does a good job at a no-bypass style brew of pour over coffee, all in a package that disappears in your ultralight gear backpack. A bit pricey, but also unique.
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3 Responses
Ummm – you double pasted a paragraph …
Also, it turns out that having flaps and buttons to close the flaps is a good thing with this brewer. It keeps the copper sleeve in place during travel, as well as keeping paper filters secure. Franklin also travels with a little pocket gram scale with a closing lid, that also slots into this brewer nicely with the flaps closed and secured, giving him that additional tool in the good pour over coffee arsenal.
The flaps seem to get in the way a bit when the brewer is in use, as the canvas material is fairly stiff. With age and use, the canvas will soften, and this should become less of an issue.
It is very easy to get the Expedition Brewer dirty; I got some coffee grounds and coffee brew on the canvas in my first four or five brews, by accident. It can lead to the “rustic charm” of the device, but if you’re someone who wants their gear to look pristine constantly, be aware.
thanks for the correction Andrew. My bad, fixed now. (this is what happens when I publish on the weekend and don’t wait for my senior blog contributor to proof the work ;))
I love the design/concept of this ultra lightweight brewer. Of course, if you’re going to add a grinder (my Aergrind weighs in at a hefty 455g), beans and a method of heating water, the weight is not so insignificant.
If you want a super lightweight option, a high-end capsule, like Cometeer, would work well for a day hike. But anybody reading this blog recognizes that the ritual of making coffee is as important as the drink itself. That is what makes an Aeropress or this Expedition Brewer superior to a convenient, but soulless, capsule.
I consider the Next Level Pulsar to be a great travel brewer, too, although I haven’t tried it on a hike.