Short answer: A plastic-free, single-serve coffee packet beats an AeroPress, pour over, or percolator on the trail because it weighs almost nothing, requires zero gear, produces zero grounds to pack out, and skips the plastic that AeroPress and most pour over setups depend on. For backpackers, hikers, and climbers counting every ounce, that's the whole argument.
Here's the breakdown.
The Weight Difference, By the Numbers
Every brew method you strap to your pack costs you ounces before you've made a single cup.
- AeroPress Go: 11.4 oz fully packed with mug and filters — or 6.4 oz stripped down to just the brewer, plunger, and filter cap.
- Pour over: The lightest dripper alone can weigh under an ounce, but you're still hauling paper filters and a bag of grounds on top of it.
- Percolator: A titanium camp percolator runs 200–250g (roughly 7–9 oz), and a stainless steel one can climb to over two pounds.
- Forth & Further packet: A week's worth fits in a jacket pocket and weighs less than the plunger alone on an AeroPress.
Multiply any of those brew methods by a multi-day trip and the difference stops being trivial. It's the line between a comfortable pack and a sore back at mile twelve.
Less Gear, Less to Pack Out
An AeroPress needs a plunger, a chamber, a cap, and a stack of filters. A pour over needs a dripper, filters, and grounds. A percolator needs, well, an entire percolator — plus the fire or stove to run it long enough to actually brew.
Every one of those is something you carry in, and everything you carry in on trail eventually has to come back out — wet grounds, spent filters, a dripper that needs washing in water you hauled up yourself. A packet has one job: open it, add water, done. Nothing to rinse, nothing to dry, nothing extra riding in your pack for the rest of the trip.
The Plastic Problem No One Talks About
AeroPress filters are single-use paper, but the plunger, chamber, and travel case are all plastic. Most pour over drippers on the market are plastic too. None of it is built to biodegrade, and a lot of it ends up exactly where backpackers try hardest to avoid leaving a trace.
Forth & Further packets are different by design: 100% recyclable or home compostable, with no plastic in the packaging at all. Even the tape is plant-based. It's responsible, it's better for the environment and better for your body...not a bad way to start the day, right?
What Microplastics Actually Do to Your Body — and the Trail
This isn't just a health talking point—it's an environmental one too. Recent research has tied microplastic exposure to measurable harm in the body:
- A 2025 study found microplastics accumulating in blood vessels in the brain, physically obstructing blood flow and triggering neurobehavioral changes.
- Cardiology researchers have linked microplastic accumulation in arterial plaque to higher rates of heart attack, stroke, and inflammation.
- Microplastics have now been detected in the liver, testicles, lymph nodes, and placenta, with lab studies showing oxidative stress and cellular damage from exposure.
Like in your body, plastic doesn't just disappear once it's in a landfill, either. Depending on the material, plastic can take anywhere from 20 to 500 years to break down—a plastic bag runs around 20 years, a plastic bottle closer to 450. Buried in a landfill, away from the sunlight that actually drives plastic breakdown, it can last even longer than that; excavated landfill waste from the 1970s has turned up decades later still intact enough to read the packaging. Every AeroPress cap, plastic dripper, or foil-lined pour-over filter that gets tossed is signing up for that same multi-century timeline.
You've seen the other half of that problem firsthand: the gum-wrapper glint of a torn filter packet at a switchback, a scrap of foil half-buried at a campsite fire ring. It doesn't disappear—it breaks into smaller and smaller pieces, works into the soil and waterways, and eventually into the wildlife (and hikers) drinking from them. A plastic-free, compostable packet won't leave that kind of mark, in the landfill or at the trailhead.
None of this is a reason to panic over your coffee. It's a reason to notice how much plastic quietly touches what you eat and drink every day — and to choose packaging that doesn't add to it, especially in the wild places you're out there to enjoy and protect.
The Main Point
An AeroPress makes a great cup of coffee. So does a pour over. But out on the trail, "great cup of coffee" isn't the only variable—weight, gear, cleanup, and plastic waste all come with it. A Forth & Further packet cuts nearly every one of those to zero and still makes a really great cup of coffee when you're at 10,000...or 20,000 feet. And, Forth & Further can make you a smooth vanilla latte on a mountain summit...try that with pour over.
FAQ
Is instant coffee lighter than an AeroPress for backpacking? Yes. A handful of Forth & Further packets weighs less than the plunger alone on an AeroPress Go, with no mug, filters, or case required.
Are AeroPress filters recyclable? AeroPress filters are paper and compostable, but the AeroPress itself — plunger, chamber, and travel case — is plastic and are not.
What makes Forth & Further packaging plastic-free? Every packet is designed to be 100% recyclable or home compostable. The packets are make with kraft paper lined with a paper-based cellophane—no plastic used in the packaging.