So I have a story... My grandfather was in WW2. He hated the coffee he got. As a result he just 'saved' the ground coffee, and never drank it. After the war he was stationed in the American quarter of Berlin. He met and became friends with a German man who turned out to be a jeweler. At some point my grandfather and him were talking about rings, as my grandfather, when he got back to the states, wanted to propose to my grandmother. The jeweler had saved some materials and offered to make a ring, but the subject of payment was a question mark. I'm not clear on how, but the subject of trading for the ring came up, and lo and behold, the coffee found a use. By that point he said he had saved up around two pounds of 'the worst damn coffee I had ever tasted' but apparently coffee was almost impossible to get in Berlin if you were a German at the time. And so my grandfather traded two pounds of ground coffee for a 17 carat amethyst engagement ring in a custom 20k ring.

As a wildland firefighter who lives off MREs in the summer, a big coffee fan, and a big Morgan fan, this is very important content thank you

The creamer "cracker" forms when it draws dampness and turns into a cake. I'm betting there was a tiny pinhole or tear in the packaging. It's perfectly fine to use, but it'll take forever to dissolve and it'll leave tiny clumps even when it does, like cheap protein powder. Definitely not PLEASANT, but won't kill you 😂

THIS PUTS A SMILE IN MY HEART. STEVE 1989 MRE INFO WOULD BE PROUD!

As a military my self, there is another way we "drink" the instant coffee from the transparent pouch. Take the instant coffee, creamer and sugar... dump it all at the same time in the mouth and chew on it. Really good 👌

For food packaging, at least in the USA, "non-dairy" means it doesn't contain lactose - not that it wasn't made with/from milk.

Morgan, nice work on the MRE coffee tests. As a former US soldier, I have a firsthand understanding of MRE's available to us in the 1980's. Generally speaking, we almost never had hot water available to make a cup of Joe with the miniature coffee packets. However, we were sometimes surprised with a cookie (two of them actually) that were permantantley vulcanized to a sheet of wax paper between them. They were so well stuck together, that we couldn't even sperate them with a bayonet or other sharp instrument without inadvertently crumbling the cookie into wasted bits and crumbs. Being dedicated and hungry soldiers, we barbarically scarfed down the cookies and wax paper as one unit. Then we immediately sprinkled some instant coffee into our mouth, and the chugged down some iodine laced canteen water to wash it all down. It seemed more pleasant then that it does as I explain it as a civilian now. The Tabasco sauce that you showed was not part of our MRE kits. We brought our own witch was sold at the PX (Post Exchange) in slightly larger bottles than you showed. You could even get a special clip to attach the bottle to your web gear, ruck sack or pistol belt, for easy access. I can say with absolute certainty, Tabasco was the savior of all field expedient military food. In particular, MRE entrees as they were essentially devoid of any familiar flavor, that only Tabasco could rectify. Everyone knows what Tabasco tastes like and it was like an old friend showing up to make things just a little bit better. "Hooah" You must have been using more up to date MRE's which appeared to have better stuff in them... Like the Latte and Mocha drinks. LOL. Thank you so much for taking me back to that time in my life. Sincerely, Mark Nicholson (Retired) Former, US Army - EFMB, Combat Medical Specialist 1/94th FA MLRS Charley Battery, Erlangen West Germany

The pro strategy was to mix three or four instant coffee packets in with the Irish Creme. It cut the sweetness a bit and left you uncomfortably caffeinated.

Hey Morgan, just a preparation note from a Marine who's had his fair share of these coffees. For the brown bag coffees, I typically use cold water, close the bag with as much air inside it as I can, and use the inflated bag like a shaker bottle. I think I get more foam and a fuller texture that way. Also the key with MREs is creativity. The creamer, sugar, Bill's Brew, and even salt packets can all be added into the brown bag to find something new and tasty. A whole salt packet will make anything taste salty, but just a pinch into the coffee and the remainder split between the dessert and the entree is magnificent when you're sweating out electrolytes all day.

Young whipper-snappers don’t know how good they have it. Jk, interesting how it’s evolved. I had Marine Corps MRE’s in the 1989-91 range. Because of limited time and resources to heat the water, plus not wanting to waste anything, I made my own “mocha”. Basically, combined all the coffee, creamer, sugar and hot chocolate into one canteen cup. Also, those little Tabasco bottles were premium trading items. You could trade them for any drink, dessert or even entree you desired.

I can not wait for the next Worldchampion entry featuring Morgan and MRE instant coffee as a signature drink.

The addition of the zip-loc drink bags was the best thing to happen to MREs when I was in the Navy. Huge improvement over ripping the top off a bag, adding water, folding over the top, and then holding it closed while shaking. The cappuccinos were good, but my favorite was to collect enough spiced cider packets to fill an entire drink bag.

Congrats for WBC 2nd place! Like barista myself, I am very proud of you!

When I was in the Army the shake to prepare bags of coffee were some of my favorite pick-me-ups while being miserable in the desert. I've heard lots of mixed reviews of them from some of my peers but I'm glad you can appreciate them too! Towards the end of my stint in the Army I started bringing my jetboil stove, hand grinder, and an aeropress to the field. I guess it makes sense that I ended up transferring into the department of the Air Force...

This is probably my favorite MorganDrinksCoffee video so far! Hopefully the rest of the video is as good as the first second.

She said, "I could see myself doing this in a cafe," and I heard the possibility of an MRE themed cafe.

I would love to see you do camp coffees! Pretty much all geologists who drink coffee have resorted to these methods at various points, with a wide range of outcomes. I've done cowboy coffee, where you boil the coffee and grounds together, then pour a cup of cold water in to settle the grounds (always wondered about the physics of the floculation there). Mostly this would double as ink in a fountain pen, in my experience. I've also done the old, huge percolator-on-a-fire thing. Mocha pots seem to work okay in that situation as well. French Perss always seemed like cheating. But I'm hardly a good coffee brewer--I make it strong and in big batches. I'd love to see a more educated approach to brewing coffee on a fire.

As a coffee lover and Steve1989 viewer, I'm so thrilled right now 👀

Congrats on taking second in the WBC. It was my first time watching the competition and I really enjoyed your presentation.

The reason there aren't cup sizes on the packets is because all military members carry a field ration kit which includes a cup, silverware, and a dish. They all have the same thing. Cool trivia. Many soldiers actually sketch into their ration kits. I've seen a few that are utterly gorgeous.

As a soldier and a member of the Kuwaiti Air Force..... I was waiting impatiently for someone to come and say his opinion, frankly and impartially, with the taste of instant coffee, which is used in the army's emergency meals that come to us from the US army as an essential part of the seasonal training... Thank you for Your effort and always successful choice to try things and give us an idea, free of charge 😁, about the content of these things 🌷👍🙂👸👑🍵

Congrats on getting second place in wbc, and glad you're back to doing videos again, I really enjoyed the wbc and thought you're routine was really cool

Congratulations! That trophy sure is a chonker! I feel like the glass plaques, like the USBC one, are a bit easier to display in most settings, but this is definitely a monument to your achievement. Great job!

Morgan! Huge congrats on 2nd. Such an insane achievement. And great video as always!

Seeing that long brown spoon brought a smile to my face. For a long time they only came with a white spoon about half that size and that would make it difficult to reach into some of the packets of food and scrape things out. MRE coffee was my introduction to drinking coffee but since water was at times funny tasting, I would often pack it in the gums in order to get caffeinated. Great video!

The sparkle in your eye as you said "outdoor explorations" made me smile. Consider taking us along!

I love the dichotomy of civilians being fascinated by MREs, while anyone who has been on an FTX loathes them, except for steve1989, he is the MVP. Love the vid as always!

congrats on taking 2nd. i literally cried in admiration of your presentation. you emanate passion and ohmygosh i am so proud! also this video was so fun. my husband is in the army and so he is def no stranger to MREs, im gonna show him this vid haha.

Congrats on the Second Place finish! And I have an admission. In the winter, I make Swiss Miss with coffee. Every. Single. Day. Did it in a pinch years ago when I found out we were out of creamer after making coffee. It's pretty good.

Glad you are back, congrats on your finish place. That is impressive.

Awesome seeing you do an MRE review. I loved when you used the system I used to make Coffee in the feild and have been wanting to do a video of it myself once I find it.

they stopped including the tiny tabasco bottles in favor of packets in the recent MRE's I've had. on the upside, the new ones almost invariably taste better than the old ones, so not being able to stockpile hot sauce as well is somewhat offset by there being less of a need for it since the food is usually fine without it these days

Super congrats on your WBC win. I missed your videos while you were gone and it's great to have you back safe. I too have tried a couple MREs and rather enjoyed some of the coffee. I have a tiny Tabasco bottle around somewhere. Just stay away from the omelette lol.

KZfaq served me the video of your championship and from there have stumbled down the rabbit hole of your channel! It's amazing! I can't wait to discover more about coffee.

So in training if we were lucky to get the chocolate powder milk, and maybe have coffee or ask someone for the instant coffee, I would make concoctions of my own to make them taste better. You make the instant coffee in the drink bag, then mix in the chocolate mix as desired and you have a pretty dang good mocha coffee. A goo video idea would be making MRE coffee gourmet, only using MRE products! (Besides cups and hot water of course!)

Congratulations, I saw your performance in the finals in Melbourne and you did great, was both emotionally moving and fun to watch.

your videos are such a therapeutic thing to watch and vibe to at ungodly hours in the day lol keep up the amazing work and congrats on the WBC position!

congratulations! your presentation on the WBC was outstanding and mesmerizing!

Morgan!! We missed you and are really proud of you with your work at WBC 2022. P.S. I saw Lance screaming so hard for you at the end of your presentation. Love it!

Yes! Okay being Army myself I'm so happy someone else absolutely love the tiny tobasco bottles

Those brown bag MRE drinks are sooo good to me. They knock it out of the park with the fruit drinks and I bet the coffee is similar.

In the 1980s in the Army we used to mix the coffee, instant, Type I or if the MRE has a Type II, with the creamer and the hot cocoa mix. I never did this but I heard that depending onthe menu item, there was one of many cakes and just a little water with the cocoa mix and maybe the instant coffee would result in a, "frosting" that the handle of the spoon would be used to spread.

I remember feeling like a god in basic finding the French vanilla cappuccino or lemon pound cake.

In australian military cadet groups, we get "Hungerbuster" MRE's. the coffe was half decent, but they came with sweetened condensed milk and hit chocolate, so we would mix them all together to make a very sweet "biv/field mocha"

Food (or coffee) for thought: MDC in the Wild! It's one thing to brew a coffee in a kitchen with an electric kettle. But to do it in camping style (tent-style. No fancy pop-up trailers or a 108' RV). Coffee is great, anytime/anywhere you get it. In an ICP during a hurricane or in the mess during drill - all that matters in that 15 minutes is your coffee, and you. Thanks Morgan for the eval!

The ones I had in the 80s, including the last of the C Rations made, I had a coffee, a hot chocolate, creamer, and sugar. Mix all together for a pretty decent mocha. Given we’re out in the field, which adds to the flavor.

During long army ruck marches I actually collected as much of the the accessory pack coffee from my peers and made “iced” coffee in my canteen. It probably had 20 coffee packs and I did add sugar and creamer but i’m not sure how many. It was pretty good honestly, I say “iced” becuase our ruck marches are always very early the morning and at the time of the year it was cold. The Irish coffee packet I literally fight for and trade whatever I can to get it. I love it and of course all of these are consumed during field training exercises where you don’t have any other option besides what comes in the MRE’s.

When I was in Boy Scouts in the mid-1960s we sometimes had "C-rations" (actually their successor, Meal Combat Individual) on overnight hikes. When you were cold, wet, and tired, the mix of the instant coffee, hot chocolate, creamer, and sugar was very welcome. And the included cigarettes (!) could be traded to the guys that smoked.

During Katrina and Rita, we got a bunch of these and I loved the cappuccinos so much XD

I love watching MRE videos too!! Really want to try cooking MRE foods with the steam pack on a "rock"

I remember the coffee in the MREs of the late 80s eartly 90s. It wasn't good, but better than nothing as were most of the food items. The one item that was always considered a jackpot were the dehydrated strawberries. Those were very well loved.

Noice, should've left it out on a tray but I digress. Welcome back! Looking forward to more regular content again!

IIRC there are some deifference between freeze dried and spray dried and steve typically prefers type 2 which are freeze dried

I love that there's tabasco in one of the accessory packets :D

I would actually love to see you taste MRE foods, could be a fun series

Artic MRE's, the white one, require a ton of stirring, or bodyheat in order to be edible. They are designed to keep between your cold weather system and your body.

Thank you Morgan for taking one for the team LOL. I know I would be reluctant to test coffees from MREs.

Hearing how all of the vets here used to customize their field coffee makes how my old Girl Scout leader’s husband used to make his weird caffeine potions while camping make perfect sense

I have type one diabetes so when you were talking about type one instant coffee i couldn't help but giggle lolll

The cup referred to is the canteen cup, and you're supposed to add about half of that cup. Which is about 10 oz of water. But generally you'd only use about a quarter of the cup of water.

I love your content! Big ups from South Kr.

Really need to get this out onto a tray.

I used to just put the instant powder straight into my mouth if I was "slumming it" with the MRE coffee. I would trade whatever necessary to get that kick of caffeine if we were out on a long patrol or a multi-day convoy. It was a lifesaver after we began our week-long walk through Fallujah in November, 2004.

So Happy for you. You were amazing!!

Way back in Boy Scouts, on certain rare occasion we did use surplus MREs. They ALWAYS had those tiny little tabasco bottles. Which, being Boy Scouts, we would bet each other we couldn't drink them straight, and then we would.

good to watch you compete Morgan !

I enjoyed your neoteric view on MRE coffees. Remember the true purpose of coffee in Meals Ready to Eat… Survival coffee. It is cute to compare premium grounds to these instant crystals. Keep on creating. I enjoy the content.

You gotta add the little Tabasco sauce bottle in the coffee to make it spicy and tolerable.

Those white MREs are cold weather versions. More calories and slightly different menu options. Side note everyone in my platoon agreed that they tasted better than regular ones.

The 2 coffee creamer was solidified corn syrup solids (oils), it appears that that accessorize pack was from an old MRE (possibly from 1990-2000) pretty standard for things like that lol.

At Field Training, instead of making any beverage with my coffee, i just ate the instant coffee for the caffeine. Not bad actually

saw the wbc video from your performance, very cool, and congrats, waiting 4 your video's on that.

Just watch the video, you did it an excellent job kudos!

I found you through the world Barista Championship. Love your content!

🎉 🥳 congrats, love your extinction-renewal angle at the competition.

Welcome back. Congratulations.

You've been advertising Vessi so much, i actually wanted to pick some up, but unfortunately they don't ship to Europe :/ Anyhow - thanks for the cool and inspiring Video, as always. Idk, i just love your energy and the content you make is both informative and incredibly entertaining to watch. Praise to the YT Shorts algorithm for leading me here a while ago.

That second one you drank is an MCI accessory packet and by the looks of it without cigarettes meaning it could be anywhere from 1972-1980. So that cream substitute or whatever is very old and is not supposed to be clumped like that.

OO! You should pair up with Miranda in the wild for the camping trip!!! You could test oudoor coffee makers in the wild!!!!!!!!! :)

Morgan, be careful if you use the heater that comes with it. It can easily scald the fingers and you have to do it outside. The smoke is bad for your lungs.

French vanilla is my favorite while in the field

Rip I’m a little late, but yay!!!! Welcome back!!! Congrats again!!!!

I found one of my old 24 ration packs lying around recently, complete with tea and coffee making facilities 😂 Have yet to date to try them.

If you’ve ever packed a lip or dry scooped bills coffee during BCT/OSUT/AIT go ahead and hit that subscribe button!

Congratulations on your win. Way to represent the USA.

I've never seen a Barista Championship than KZfaq suggested Morgan Eckroth, USA - 2022 World Barista Championship: Finals. I watched it and I must say that it was impossible to turn off. Your voice and stage presence captured my attention and I must say your very good at what you do. If it wasn't for you I never would've showed an interest in this line of competition.

Thank you for your sacrifice. Even I, who consumes odd food combinations, would never attempt this.

As an army soldier currently in AIT, I find this incredibly entertaining lol. These coffees got me through basic.

I would like to make a suggestion regarding how you edit your videos: don't remove all the pauses. Leave some in. With no pauses, you seem a bit hyper, as if you're never catching your breath, and it's also a bit more taxing to listen to. Slowing down the pace and having fewer cuts can make a video more relaxing to watch. You don't need to make a big change, but it does take a bit of art to find a comfortable balance. In any case, I hope you continue to have fun making new videos!

Honestly the first rule of making military coffee is always triple or quadruple the recommended coffee amount. Military people often love coffee that is close to tar than a liquid. And a lot of us love a Turkish coffee

sometimes you just need a sugary coffe bev after fancy coffee Also, I don't know if it is a Thing in the states, but in Aus you can buy coffee sweetened condensed milk, which can be mixed with boiling water to IN THEORY make coffee while camping!

Half the time I would just pour the instant coffee from the packet into my mouth as a quick caffeine hit while in the field. I would take the time to warm it up in the morning with the FRH and beverage bag, that would make it decent with the creamer and splenda.

I don't think I have missed anyone's videos more than I yours

Collab with steve1989 when? “Let’s get that out onto the tray…” . . . . . . . “Nice!”

You should try First Ascent instant coffee. It was developed where I live in Colorado by backpackers who missed their nice coffee when out on the trail and NASA just sent a whole load of it up to the Space Station!

Congrats on placing second at WBC, you go!!!!

Enjoyable content. I remember most of thoes (and others) from my service days. Everyone had there own method of mix and match. Using 2 coffee for stronger, add coffee to the coco ( predates the flavored variation). Even tabasco to coffee. I also remember bottles of "liquid " concentrate use to brew 5 gallons at a time. Non of it was "good" (its a cultural thing)but it was better then nothing. As for experation dates... they dont have them on MREs. 10 to 15+ YEARS officily. The creamer "cracker"... yup been there. Just gulp or chew and move on.

your 5s happen to be my favorite from mre's I used to trade for those back when I was on active duty. I had friends who just didnt like them so when It I was hording them and using warm water to make warm coffee for myself. Or...If I had a heater and only cold water, just threw it in the heater.

I can't believe you didn't get it out on a tray.

Congrats on your 2nd place!!! Greetings from Spain. I (and a few others I imagine) would like to know your opinion on the Mahlkönig lurking in the background of your videos…🤞)