Never Settle For Bad Coffee Again: My Ultimate Caffeine Survival Guide For Travelers

My morning routine is simple. It starts with coffee, and eases into work. That’s true whether I’m at home or on the road.

I’m drinking a little less than I used to. For years I joked that you could run my blood through a still once a week to filter out caffeine byproducts, and use that to run a local taxi fleet’s alternative fuels experiment.

For years I’ve ordered freshly roasted beans online at Old Bisbee Roasters. I grind the beans fresh for each cup. And I generally make my coffee strong, too often people water it down.

Things are a little more complicated on the road, whether it’s inflight or in hotels.

My Morning Airport Routine

At the Austin airport we have an app-based coffee robot. When I turn up at the TSA checkpoint I hit the order button on my phone. By the time I’m through security and walking by the machine my drink is ready. I enter a three digit code and it’s released to me. I stop for a matter of seconds and I continue on my way.

austin airport briggo coffee robot
Some Foolish People Stand in Line to Order From the Machine Instead of Downloading the App

The Problem With Airline Coffee

One Mile at a Time recently shared his thoughts on coffee and much of our thinking is similar, though he’s more positive on coffee inflight than I am, and we have some nuanced differences in approach.

There are really three things that go into airline coffee, and explain why it’s usually bad. There’s the beans, the (tank) water, and the cabin pressure.

Frankly in the air about the best thing you can do with the grounds is use them to mask smells in the lavatory.

coffee grounds in airplane lavatory

Investing in better coffee just makes good business sense.

  • A major legacy airline likely spends $5 – $10 million a year on coffee.
  • Improving it might double the price.

However the value created for an airline far outstrips that price.

  • Improved operational efficiency and reduced delays, by eliminating pilots stopping at Starbucks in the terminal on the way to the aircraft.

  • Improved employee morale, which in turn affects customer service. Better coffee is a product flight attendants can be proud of and reduces complaints they receive from customers.

  • This is especially important on high yield business routes, the ‘first flight Monday morning’ consultant specials.

When United Airlines dropped Starbucks after the Continental merger in favor of Fresh Poo, Delta picked up Starbucks. Then when Oscar Munoz replaced CEO Jeff Smisek in a corruption scandal one of the first attempts at a rapprochement with customers was to introduce stroopwafels and Illy coffee. United is probably using the best beans of any U.S. carrier now, but it still suffers from the water they use and that they’re making it at altitude.

Meanwhile the idea that Starbucks somehow signals quality is strange. And the brand alone doesn’t matter most, when United served Starbucks it was a special light brew because too many passengers were overwhelmed by deeper flavors. They worked to serve the lowest common denominator taste.

Nonetheless I’ve certainly had some good coffee on board. ANA in particular, perhaps a dozen years ago, served an amazing variety of quality choices. I used to eschew alcohol, too excited to try the different coffees, despite wanting to get plenty of sleep on board.

I love Etihad’s coffee service – and not just for the silver trays and baklava – but because they’ve usually been willing to customize the strength of what they serve. To be sure it’s really just adjusting how strong the espresso they use is, and there’s a difference between coffee and espresso, but I get the deep rich flavor as well as caffeine I need after a long Etihad flight.

etihad first class coffee service

Here’s something else that drives me nuts about airline coffee, though – carriers that won’t serve hot drinks when the seat belt sign is on. A little turbulence on approach to Hong Kong after a long overnight Cathay Pacific flight and having no access to coffee is another form of fail.

The Challenge of Hotel Coffee

On the road I’ll often drink Starbucks but the truth is that’s effectively ‘giving up’. Nonetheless I’ll even choose a hotel based on its proximity to a nearby coffee shop that opens early, if not one in the hotel itself.

costa coffee
Costa Coffee, Premier Inn, Abu Dhabi International Airport

The problem with hotel coffee shops or carts is that they frequently don’t open early enough. People are coming in from all time zones. If you’re on the East Coast you may have guests from Europe, perhaps just getting in the night before, there’s a good chance they’ll be up before 6 a.m. Similarly a hotel on the West Coast hosting guests from the East Coast.

Years ago I stayed at a W Hotel on the West Coast. I woke up at 5 a.m. and wanted coffee. There was nothing in the room to make it. I called the “Whatever Whenever” line. I wanted coffee (whatever) at 5 a.m. (whenever) but told it was not possible before 6.

And don’t get me started on hotel shops that say they open at 6, but you go downstairs to find that the employees who are supposed to run it haven’t shown up yet.

hilton jfk lobby coffee shop
Hilton JFK

At least the coffee is likely to be better than what you can make yourself in the room, and hopefully made from equipment that gets cleaned every now and then (or at least every six months).

And this is why you check the hotel coffeemaker before you use it…. from r/trashy

If you’re going to use the in-room machine though I want to leave as little as possible to chance. I’ll take a K-cup machine, but the truth is those don’t make very good coffee. Mark Bittman suggests how to hack a Keurig,

Insert one coffee pod into the Keurig and fill the machine’s reservoir with half the required amount of water. When the machine is finished brewing, insert another pod into the Keurig and put another half-requirement of water in the reservoir. When it’s finished brewing, you will have a full cup with twice the coffee, Bittman says.

“I’m not saying it’s any good,” Bittman says, “but at least it’s got a little body and a little flavor to it, and it probably has the amount of caffeine you’re looking for.”

keurig machine w hotel austin
W Austin

That still leaves the problem with in-room coffee that (1) since it’s bad, (2) you probably need to cut the flavor with some sort of creamer, however (3) stuff most hotels stock in rooms that doesn’t need refrigeration isn’t going to get you what you need.

That’s one reason why I’ll sometimes order from room service, first hoping that it’ll be better than what I can make in the room, but mostly just to get fresh creamer for bad coffee. Although I was once accused of stealing coffee from room service at a Sheraton.

Where to Find the Best Coffee

One of the great things about traveling is experiencing the world as other people experience it, and realizing that while your own home town may be great in many ways there’s a whole variety of perspectives and innovations that you can bring back with you and improve your own life in ways you’d never have thought of.

On the whole coffee in the U.S. is much better than it was 20 years ago. There was once a fear that Starbucks would put small independent coffee shops out of business, and the opposite has happened. Starbucks turned out to be a ‘gateway’ to better coffee, introducing a mass consumer market to $4 cups rather than Folgers or Sanka. And many of those consumers graduated to more nuanced takes on coffee offered by smaller purveyors. Independent shops have prospered in many ways because of Starbucks.

However much of the world has been far ahead of the U.S. in coffee. While some people swear by Italian coffee culture – you won’t sit down in a coffee shop so much as stand and drink your espresso, and certainly not get it to go – I’ve found the very best coffee to be in Singapore, Malaysia, and Australia.

oriole cafe singapore
Oriole Cafe & Bar at the Pan Pacific off Orchard Road

I’ll take even OldTown White Coffee kopitiam in Malaysia over Starbucks, and independent shops seem to do a better job than most places in most cities here in the States. It may just be – as especially in Singapore and Melbourne – that the competition is so abundant and the consumer tastes developed over long periods.

To be sure there are myriad coffee shops in Austin, and the coffee in my home town is above average for the U.S., but we don’t compare – expectations are so high in other parts of the world that you’re far less likely to get bad coffee just about anywhere you go, without searching out for ‘best’.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

More articles by Gary Leff »

Comments

  1. Austrian Air had the best inflight coffee I’ve ever had.
    The only airline coffee I’ve ever enjoyed.

  2. Caffeine is a drug.

    If you’re tired, you need more sleep.

    Your body will thank you. So will your mind. As will all the people you interact with who won’t have to put up with your sleep deprived self.

    This blog post should not be where is the best coffee. It should be which hotels have the best mattresses and blackout curtains for restful slumber.

  3. I presumed this was going to be about the coffee on Delta, since Delta featured in your previous four articles. And I thought Tom Boon was the most mammoth Delta suck-ups among webmasters.

  4. Ask the hotel bar for a little cup of real milk to take back to your room for coffee. Use the in room coffee machine but bring your own Starbucks Via to add to the weak pitiful coffee it makes. Bring your own cup if you know there will only be paper cups.

  5. Mount Hagen organic freeze-dried coffee is available in single serve packets and can do wonders on its own with hot water (I use 2 per 10-12 oz water) or as a booster for weak hotel/restaurant/airplane coffee.

  6. Gary Leff writes, “When United Airlines dropped Starbucks after the Continental merger in favor of Fresh Poo, Delta picked up Starbucks.” I agree and I am grateful that United Airlines was serving “Fesh Poo” as their stale poo did not have sweetness, body, acidity, flavors, and finish that I want when drinking a great cup of coffee.

  7. I bring a small baggie with grounds from home and my Bodum travel press. If there is not a tea kettle to boil water I run water through the coffee machine and pour it into the Bodum. Never a bad cup. Have not asked a FA for hot water, but it would prob work at 32k ft, too.

  8. The struggle is real. I usually don’t bother ordering coffee in the sky, and it’s a rare hotel that has a truly delicious cup, but I can settle for pretty awful coffee if I’m desperate. Asiana actually has some pretty decent coffee on board and though I’ve never flown ANA, I thought JAL coffee was pretty good, too. That said, I agree the best coffee is usually found at a local non-chain cafe and not in the hotel, plane or airport.

  9. Let us first separate airline coffee from hotel coffee…

    I will bring fresh beans, a Porelex hand coffee grinder, my AeroPress and an immersion heater in my suitcase when I travel. (@Bob Not Bob — you cannot count on the the hotel room even having a coffee machine much of the time, and thus cannot use it (or god forbid, a REAL tea kettle!) to make hot water.) Hotel problem solved.

    Airline coffee —> at least domestically (US), it’s mostly a case of “Abandon hope all ye who enter here…” Now, admittedly Alaska Airlines switching to Stumptown is a definite improvement over Charbux, but you still suffer from pre-ground coffee, a water tank that never gets cleaned, and making it at altitude. I have a commercial espresso machine installed in my kitchen (an Elektra T1 “Sixties,” if anyone cares). So I “fuel up” before I leave the house and take a latte to drink in the car.

    SFO is my home airport, and in T1 (Alaska, American, JetBlue, Southwest, etc.), there is both a Ritual Coffee (a local SF roaster) and an Illy Caffé. The Alaska Lounge also has an on-site barista who makes drinks on a real machine, versus the super automatic which is all most lounges have. (AS has them too, in case the barista is off duty.) Ergo, I can often avoid the need to order coffee up in the air. However, when flying to the East Coast, I typically grab the first flight out, leaving generally between 6:30-7:30. This means I’m up at 3:00-3:30, and by the time I’ve been in the air for 2-3 hours, I’ll usually put up with my one mediocre cup of the day…

  10. Get over your caffeine addiction. Get into a scheduled bed time and stick to it. Once your body is rested all you will need is to splash your face with cold water to wake up

  11. For the home: Delonghi Magnifica.

    That’s it. Beans, water, magic. Get the Costco Dark Roast whole beans. They works great.

    It likely pays for itself in less than a year vs coffee shop coffee prices.

    As to coffee being a drug: Yes, and it’s one of the few left I enjoy. Begone puritans! Away with you!

  12. The hotels at which I stay almost always have a Nespresso original coffeemaker. I travel with two sleeves of capsules in case a given hotel doesn’t have my flavor. Easy enough.

  13. A few random thoughts:

    – First, AA has the worst coffee of any airline I’ve flown. Horrible…they don’t even try.
    – Hotels give options to forego housekeeping, but then you have to remember to ask for more coffee
    – Nothing worse than waking up and finding the three packets are all DECAF. Is it that hard?
    – A trick a coworker told me about…bring instant coffee packets (like Starbucks Via). Then you can be assured to have decent coffee (takes care of #2 and #3 a above).

    Yes, I know…first world problems :))

  14. I remember when Delta partnered with Caribou Coffee for their in-flight product (I believe it was in the 90s). IMHO, Caribou has the best beans among the “larger” chains and is the only one that comes close to rivaling what I make at home (my wife is a coffee snob and we’re avoiding all forms of sweeteners, so what I brew needs to be good). You’re right, water and beans is what makes the coffee good or bad. At home, I usually use my tap water (my county has very good tasting water) though I used to use a Zero filter when I lived in FL. I’ve been buying beans from Atlas because they rotate through small farmers in various countries (many of which are not necessarily known for coffee). I press a shot of espresso and add steamed milk, a splash of vanilla extract, and cinnamon and it’s just about perfect.

    For those saying to give up caffeine, yes, it’s a drug, but in moderation, not a real big deal. Some of us deal with insomnia (and yes, I’ve tried giving up caffeine for a year and saw no improvement in it) and the coffee adds to my quality of life when I’ve not gotten any sleep. Plus, there are some potential medical benefits from the coffee – for me, I find it tends to lessen my acid reflux somehow.

  15. I’ve heard Starbucks referred to as “Charbucks.” I much prefer Kirkland Signature’s French roast whole beans–at a good price. And needing coffee does not mean you need sleep! It means you like coffee (and its effects).

    BTW, half portions with a Keurig does yield something drinkable; I find that Nespresso is also quite decent.

  16. 1. I agree with comment that Austrian has the best coffee in the air!
    2. It’s called Charbucks for a reason.
    3. I agree that great coffee is to be had in Singapore.
    4. Since it costs a lot of money to get a great cup, I found a great substitute in Finland where we spend about three months every year. Finns drink more coffee per capita than anywhere else.
    The big brand is Paulig. And they specialize in Roasting great beans to approximate the best coffees around from around world. And Lo and behold, one is called Singapore. And it tastes very much like that which I had in Singapore. Each time I leave, heading back to Malta, I pick up 10 bags of the beans. Don’t return home without it.

  17. If your airport has a Peet’s coffee, you will do very well with that.

    One Peet’s coffeebar had a poster: “Charcoal belongs in your barbecue, not in your coffee cup.” – a subtle dig to Starburnt.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *