Review: No Normal Coffee Dark Roast
If you're looking for a new way of consuming coffee while backpacking or camping, No Normal Coffee is worth trying out. This coffee paste is a game changer!
After years and years of carrying instant coffee, pour over gear or an aeropress, I became exhausted of options for coffee while backpacking. In 2023 I relied on caffeine capsules to keep my energy up in the morning, but that left a lot to be desired, because I genuinely love coffee. It was about 2023 when No Normal Coffee popped up on my radar, but it wasn't until recently that I took this coffee paste on a backpacking trip!
Quick Rundown of No Normal Coffee
- Dark roast coffee paste
- One tube = 20 cups of coffee
- Mix with water to drink it, or spread it on something to eat it. Or just squeeze it into your wide open mouth
- Shelf life of one year unopened / One month opened
- No trash to pack out other than the tube
- Ingredients: Coffee extract (Arabica, Colombia) 46%, beet sugar (Switzerland), ground coffee (Arabica, Colombia) 15%, water, natural thickener (xanthan gum, gum arabic)
- Tastes absolutely awesome
My Experience with No Normal Coffee
I brought one tube of No Normal Coffee with me on a backpacking trip in the high desert. The temperatures I would be backpacking in were quite frigid, so I wanted a coffee option that didn't necessarily need to involve a stove in case my hands were too cold to pull out of my mittens. And honestly, I hate bringing a camp stove with me. I'm a pretty lazy backpackers in that regard!
On my first morning waking up at camp, it was about 15°f out and everything was frozen. I decided I did in fact want hot coffee, so I got my water boiling and pulled out my tube of No Normal Coffee. I was excited by the fact that the tube was not frozen, which makes this a perfect addition to winter backpacking food. I opened it up and got a bit on my finger, so licked it off. And wow! It was pretty tasty. So right away I understood why they say this can also be used as a spread as well.
I added probably way too much of the coffee paste to my coffee. About one heaping spork of it to about 16 ounces of boiling water. I stirred it up for about 30 seconds. And then I let it cool down a bit. My first sip was a delight and before I knew it I had sipped down the whole pot of it! No Normal Coffee is delicious.
An initial stand-out to me about this coffee is that it doesn't have any waste. No little pieces of packaging that can blow away in the wind or that need to be packed out. It's a metal tube with a cap. Of course because it's a paste, it's a bit heavier than something like instant coffee, but the weight is very much worth it to me.
One tube of No Normal Coffee would last about a five days for how I consume coffee. Maybe a full week if I was mindful about having one strong cup a day. I cannot emphasize enough how nice it is to have a coffee product that can be consumed however you want! You can drink it hot, cold or spread it on crackers or stir it into cold soaked oatmeal. It tastes like delicious coffee however you have it.
As for caffeine content, a serving has 43mg/3.34 ounces, which is a little bit lower than your average cup of coffee at home, but right on par with basic instant coffee.
For me, No Normal Coffee is likely going to be coming along on loads of backpacking trips and adventures. It's a solution to a problem I have had for many years: I just want easy coffee. Now I have it!
If you're interested in trying out No Normal Coffee, be sure to order it well ahead of time for your backpacking trip. They are shipped from Switzerland and can take a while to arrive here in the good ol' US of A.
My review is independent of the supplier and reflects my own opinions.
