Challenge 8000 mountaineer is now the brand ambassador for outdoors coffee specialist, Grower's Cup.
Alan Hinkes - first British mountaineer to climb all 8,000 metre peaks, as if you didn't know - is, along with being a fairly serious climber, also notoriously fussy when it comes to food and drink. He likes his fuel to be preferably locally sourced and organic with it.
So we were intrigued when he appeared at the Kendal Outdoor Retail Show clutching a brown paper pouch which he claimed was full of tasty organic coffee. Turns out that Hinkesy is the new brand ambassador for something called Grower's Cup, a unique outdoors-friendly coffee solution that marries carefully sourced organic coffee with a sealed pouch.
To prepare a brew, you simply open the pouch, add hot water, leave to brew, then pour out. You might of course, be suspicious of Hinkes's impartiality - he has a free tee-shirt - but actually we reckon it tastes pretty good, like a decent quality filter coffee in fact, but without the need for anything more than a source of hot water.
The product landed an award at this year's OutDoor trade show as well - the bag effectively works like a french press combined with a filter - and is rather more sophisticated than a simple pouch, while coffee buffs will be pleased to learn that the roasts its own beans from carefully selected sources worldwide.
There's more about it at www.growerscup.com. There are five varieties of coffee available, ranging from Bolivia to Ethiopia and individual pouches, which produce 500cc of fresh coffee. World famous coffee-brewing mountaineer is an optional extra.
