Adam Harvey reviews the latest holiday gadgets
Coffee on the move
A lack of electricity is no longer an excuse for coffee cravings. Be the envy of the campground with the Brewfire portable espresso machine. A dead ringer for a kitchen stovetop machine, the Brewfire is powered by liquid-propane bottles or butane canisters, and at a tad under three kilos the plastic machine is light enough to pack. It will brew eight cups in about 10 minutes and keep coffee warm for more than two hours. It's $99 (€68) from www.brunton.com.
Quick-dry T-shirts are warm when it's cold and wick sweat away from your skin when it's not. They suit cold weather stop-start sports such as skiing, and they'll stay dry during a long run or walk. Patagonia's Capilene 1 (€40, www.patagonia.com) is made from lightweight recycled polyester - it weighs 130g - and is cut long enough to tuck in. It's made from recycled material and has something called Gladiodor, or "natural odour control", which may mean that smelly wearers will be thrown to the lions. Patagonia is to be commended for including energy statistics with all its products, but the results for this shirt might scare off some eco-buyers: its raw materials travelled 13,341km and its production caused three kilos of carbon-dioxide emissions, as well as the consumption of eight kilowatts of energy. Wearers will have to do plenty of walking as compensation.
For those cold-weather picnickers who've tried to stuff a chicken leg into a Thermos flask but found it tough to extract, Primus has developed a wide-lipped screw-top vacuum lunch jug. The double-skin stainless-steel jug (€16, www.rosker.co.uk) is leak-proof and will keep a baked potato or beef curry hot for six hours. It is also ideal for lunch-room trekkers who remain suspicious of microwaves.
It comes in 350ml and 500ml capacities.
aharvey@irish-times.ie