I'm sorry I didn't think to post this earlier, but I've seen several different folks-- Mr. Goldberg from NRO, Dymphna at Gates of Vienna are the ones I remember-- mentioning how much they would greatly appreciate hot coffee, but (of course) without power, they don't have coffee machines.
My folks live in a valley that environmentalists have prevented from having more than one power line to supply electricity for the area, and thus tend to have at least one power outage a month, generally for at least six hours. My mom can't stand having grounds in her coffee, and was looking for an easier way to avoid them than adding a little cold water just before pouring a coffee pot.
You know those coffee pods you get in hotels? That look sort of like huge tea bags?
Throw those into a pan of boiling water and you can have decent coffee. Mom now has her children collect these (even the decaf!) when we stay at hotels. (better coffee in the lobby, anyways....)
A stove like this is inexpensive, even with a spare bottle of propane-- bonus, it doesn't take up a lot of room. Make a box of warm-and-eat soups, a gallon or two of water and a camp lantern and you've got a very basic emergency kit. I'd suggest having a spare carbon monoxide alarm in the box, with the battery taken out until there's an emergency. (more people die from the gas than the cold-- don't ignore the danger.)
There's also the option of instant coffee, and if you can stand that stuff you could always use hand warmers to get it warm-- oh, wow, I just found this great run down of the many, many stove options.
If you can't get coffee pods, you could always try boiling the coffee in a pan, then pouring it through a filter into a cup. (can be done with less risk of burning if you seat the filter into the cup, pour about half a mug and then lift the filter out--- my mind just brought images of some caffeine deprived soul holding a filter over the mug as they pour....)
Worse comes to worse, drive around looking for an espresso joint with a generator hooked up.
1 comments:
folgers instant coffee is remarkably good.
i'd suggest that as her remedy. its gotta be better than those coffee pods.
and if memory serves me well, they are.
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