A coffee maker that you carry in your backpack or suitcase may seem like the sort of piece only an obsessive would own (my colleague and fellow coffee intensive Chris Morocco even calls his own road coffee situation “extra”). After all, it’s easy enough to make a pot of coffee in the morning and pour it into some astronaut-spec’d vacuum-sealed mug. Voila, portable coffee.
The best portable coffee makers
- An unbreakable classic: Aeropress → Read more
- Easy handheld espresso: Wacaco Nanopresso → Read more
- Impressive handheld espresso: Wacaco Picopresso → Read more
- For the best basic cup of coffee: Wacaco Pipamoka → Read more
- If you like your coffee cold as well as hot: Oxo Rapid Brewer → Read more
But if you have even the barest ability to taste the difference between quality coffee and the watery swill that comes from single-serve sachets in moderately priced hotel rooms, if you’ve lost Airbnb coffee roulette one too many times, or if you just hate whatever sits in the urn at the office, then you really will appreciate having a portable way to brew something good.
Before getting detailed about the brewers that make good coffee easier away from home though, it's worth thinking about what actually constitutes a portable coffee maker (philosophical, I know).
What makes a coffee maker portable?
Technically, if you believe hard enough, any coffee maker can be portable. I was on a trip once, and someone took a Nespresso Vertuo out of their suitcase, but I wouldn’t recommend you try that. To really be convenient to travel with a coffee maker needs a few attributes
It should be small
If you plan to take this on quick work trips where you only bring a carry-on or in your backpack to commute, you need something that will not take up the space otherwise devoted to your MacBook and hotel gym workout clothes. To that end…
It should be self-contained
If you lose a small part that comes with a coffee maker, it may render it inoperable, or at the very least, leave it in need of a MacGyvered solution. So a good portable coffee maker should fit together in a matryoska sort of way inside the brewer itself.
It should clean up easily
Chances are reasonable that if you are somewhere where you need a portable coffee maker, space will be at a premium, and you may not have room to make a mess.
It should be durable
This thing may get bounced around by baggage agents or dropped in the dirt at a campsite, so it needs to be made out of materials that won’t chip or shatter easily.
The best portable coffee makers
I’ve tried more than a dozen portable coffee makers (or at least coffee makers that claim to be portable—sorry, cute, tiny pour-over carafe, I’m not packing glass in my suitcase) and these are the best ones I’ve used.
An unbreakable classic: Aeropress
Why I love it: The classic portable coffee maker, the Aeropress, has been around since 2005 and is beloved for the slightly-more-intense-than-a-normal-cup-coffee cup of coffee it produces. It’s easy to operate. Just add 20 grams of finely ground coffee (or two of the scoops that come with the Aeropress) to the chamber, fill it with hot (but not boiling) water, give a quick stir, let it sit for about a minute and a half, and the push the plunger to fill your cup.
I actually like to let the coffee in my Aeropress steep upside down because it doesn’t drip out the bottom during that time.
An Aeropress can’t generate as much pressure as an espresso maker can, but it does produce some, which helps give the coffee its stronger taste.
Of all the coffee makers listed here, the Aeropress is the easiest to clean by a wide margin: Just unscrew the filter and use the plunger to push the coffee puck right out the bottom into the trash. A quick rinse and you’re all done.
Why it’s easy to take on the road: The brewer itself only has three parts that all fit together snugly so there is no chance of losing parts
Other considerations: You can get a reusable mesh filter for the Aeropress, but otherwise, this is the one coffee maker on this list that requires you to bring a filter for each cup. They’re quite small and can fit in a little baggie, but that’s still one more thing to pack.
There are also several Aeropresses to choose from now. The original plastic Aeropress works just fine and is super affordable at under $40. But there are also glass (not recommended for travel) and steel models now. The Steel version is wonderful and quite durable, with a much higher quality feel to it. The sort of thing you can really fling around a campsite. But it’s bigger, heavier, costs four times as much as the original, and doesn’t brew meaningfully different coffee. It’s up to you whether the improved materials are worth the extra cost.
| Travel size | 5.25” x 4.25” |
| Coffee style | Somewhere between an espresso shot and an americano |
| Brew time | ~90 seconds |
Easy handheld espresso: Wacaco Nanopresso
Why I love it: Espresso takes a certain level of precision to make, so good pocket espresso makers are not that easy to find. But Wacaco, out of Hong Kong, makes two of them. The Nanopresso is the brand’s more beginner-friendly model and uses a pressurized filter basket to produce consistent espresso shots time and again (even if you don’t have an excellent espresso grinder to prep your coffee with).
It’s an affordable way to produce coffee better than any hotel coffee maker, with the possible exception of a Nespresso (and in fact, a Nespresso attachment is available for the Nanopresso that lets you brew capsules instead of ground coffee).
Why it’s easy to take on the road: All parts of the Nanopresso seal up into the body of the coffee maker, which fit into included carrying cases. Both are smaller than most travel coffee cups, so they can tuck in just about anywhere.
Other considerations: Brewing on both of these is simple enough—just squeeze the plunger on the side of the brewer. But loading them with coffee is finicky. They’re so small that the baskets are tedious to fill and tamp.
And, though they both feel like they’re made from high-quality materials, they’re more complicated than something like an Aeropress or the Pipamoka below, so they probably can’t take the same beating those other brewers can and still perform at the same level.
| Travel size | 2.5” x 6” |
| Coffee style | Espresso |
| Brew time | ~3 minutes (less if you use capsules) |
Pro-level handheld espresso: Wacaco Picopresso
Why I love it: The Picopresso is Wacaco’s more advanced coffee maker, with a bottomless portafilter that demands properly ground and tamped coffee. The payoff, though, is an espresso shot of the quality you can get from a reasonable countertop espresso machine.
Why it’s easy to take on the road: Everything that’s great about the Nanopresso is also true of the Picopresso, but the Pico is made with heavier duty materials upping its durability (and its price tag)
Other considerations: While both the Nanopresso and Picopresso ought to use a fine espresso grind, the Picopresso in particular really takes some dialing in. So if you want to get the most out of it, you should pair it with a quality portable coffee grinder capable of some real precision. The Timemore Chestnut C2 is the most affordable grinder I’ve used that can pull that off. The 1Zpresso J-Ultra is even better.
| Travel size | 3” x 4” |
| Coffee style | Espresso |
| Brew time | ~3 minutes |
For the best basic cup of coffee: Wacaco Pipamoka
Why I love it: If you just want to make a regular old cup of coffee away from home, the Pipamoka is your tool. It’s sort of an Aeropress in reverse. Twisting a ring on the outside of the brewer forces the coffee basket up through a stainless steel cup. It doesn’t brew with the same quick pressure as the Aeropress, and the coffee tastes a bit milder; however, it’s the easiest of the bunch to fill with coffee and water, and the lines inside the brewer clearly mark where to stop pouring depending on whether you want half, three-quarters, or a full cup of coffee.
Why it’s easy to take on the road: It only has four easy-to-keep-track-of parts (the coffee basket, a funnel, the twisting brewer, and the stainless steel cup), and the whole apparatus is contained inside the cup you brew into.
Other considerations: You don’t want to lose the funnel, because without it, the small coffee basket becomes annoying to fill.
| Travel size | 3” x 7” |
| Coffee style | Similar to drip coffee |
| Brew time | ~2 minutes |
If you like it cold as well as hot: Oxo Rapid Brewer
Why I love it: Oxo’s answer to the Aeropress brews something even more concentrated than that classic brewer. You pressurize the brew chamber with a pump on top and it only takes three or four pumps to force the water through. You can also use it to brew a cold coffee concentrate, using room temperature water, but that takes twice as much coffee (40 grams) than it does to brew hot coffee. Whatever you make should be diluted with twice as much water as you have coffee concentrate.
Why it’s easy to take on the road: When the pump is locked, it’s one of the smaller brewers on this list. It’s also made of substantial-feeling plastic and metal that can stand up to drops.
Other considerations: You do have to tamp the coffee in the brewing basket the way you do with an espresso shot, which makes it a little more labor intensive than the Aeropress of the Pipamoka. It’s also got a diameter that doesn’t fit flush inside an average coffee mug. Instead it sits on top of the mug, so you have to work a little harder to hold it in place while brewing.
| Travel size | 3” x 8.5” |
| Coffee style | Coffee concentrate |
| Brew time | ~60 seconds |
Great portable coffee makers that aren’t as convenient to use
The issues with these is not with the coffee they make, but that they just take more work to set up or use.
Technically Flair’s espresso makers are portable, because they come apart and store flat in a carrying case the size of an iPad. And they produce pro-level espresso shots once you master the process of pulling the lever to get the pressure just so. However, unlike the self-contained coffee makers above, Flairs take more time to assemble and disassemble. And the process of preparing to pull a shot are just as involved as with a countertop espresso machine.
Miir’s foldable pour-over dripper is a fun effective take on the traditional method, but any kind of pour-over is gonna be a no for me if I’m looking for a portable coffee maker. Pour-over takes more work and, to do it well, really demands a gooseneck kettle to control your water pouring. That’s something you’re unlikely to find and is too much of a pain to bring with you.