The Handpresso - Expedition Espresso Kayaking

I was reminded this week about the bizarre twists my working year presents. On Thursday I was out paddling offshore with Peter & James, two very raw but ambitious sea kayakers who have set Bass Strait as their goal & had flown in from interstate to test & buy a boat, a paddle & gear for each of them, as well as get some instruction on the best way to commence their training in skills & expedition preparation. That night I jumped on the plane to Melbourne, left my Aquatherm suit in the fish bucket & packed the Armani suit for the biggest event of my wholesale business, the annual Melbourne Gift & Homewares Fair.
This is some show, more than 2500 exhibitors, filling the entire Melbourne Exhibition Centre on Southbank as well as the Melbourne Showgrounds near Flemington Racecourse. We're there selling our diverse giftware range, with everything from Stirling Silver & gemstone jewellery to handmade Thai hill-tribe toys to outdoor folding tables & picnic bags. I joke that this is the only place in the world that you could walk into looking for a Tahitian Pearl & silver pendant, & walk out with a Nordkapp. Laugh if you must, it's happened...
Anyway, I digress. During a rare lull over the 5 days at the fair, I met a very cool dude name Nick who introduced me to the Handpresso. Ostensibly, it's a full blown espresso machine, which looks like a cross between a Glock pistol & a small bike pump, and allows you to brew a proper coffee in the wilderness without electricity, batteries or a bulky espresso machine.

The process is ridiculously simple. Add your ground coffee to the pod at the end of the 'pump', pour in hot water (somewhere between 84C & 95C for the purists), seal it off, then pump up the pressure to the 'green zone' indicated on the gauge, release the pressure & have the filter slowly brew the coffee as it's forced through by the combination of heat & pressure. Nick made me a Handpresso coffee, then another one from one of his beautiful Bugatti machines, and my pretenders palette couldn't tell the difference. The video above shows the glorious simplicity of the Handpresso.
What it means for the Expedition paddler, or even the coffee cruiser, is that you now have a tough, power-free portable & lightweight espresso maker, which makes very, very good coffee....
We have this product available through our online store for $199 including delivery nationally, with the option of a protective EVA case for the unit for an extra $50.