Winter on the South Coast of KZN is a magical time. While the rest of South Africa endures freezing cold, sleeting storms and frost that turns any body of water to ice in the interior, KZN basks in the warm winter sun, the offshore breeze fans the sea into a glassy, warm playground for anyone who loves the ocean. The sardine run flashes its way up the coast, fishermen and their entire families spends hours on the golden sands and surfers revel in the perfect waves.
The best time to be on the beach is early. For some, this means pre-dawn, for others it means just at that moment when the orange glow of the horizon lights up the silver ocean. But one thing is certain - coffee is essential and it needs to travel!
The Hydroflask - a perfect way for your coffee to adventure with you!
It is safe to say we have tried a greater than average amount of the reusable coffee cup options out there. We love the reusable cups for cafe visits, but for missions down the coast - a flask is essential. We recently discovered these flasks by Hydroflask. There are really effective at keeping your coffee hot for up to 8 hours. As you can see from the images, there is nothing quite as satisfying as a coffee while searching for waves - it adds to the the adrenaline of finding a perfect spot to surf!
The best waves always take a little bit of extra effort to find, and that means a bit of early-morning caffeine-fuelled roadtripping!
A perfect spot for a post-surf coffee on a perfect winters morning. And yes. Those are boardshorts.
There are a few things about the Hydroflask that we like - firstly, they come in a range of really cool colours and you can have them customized like we did! Secondly, they come in a range of sizes - perfect for coffee or for cold beverages. We use one for coffee and one for cold water as you never really know if there is water available at the more remote spots. The food grade stainless steel is hard working and tough. But I think the best feature of the Hydroflask is the lid.
The lid is made up of 4 parts that easily dis-asemble and this means simple to clean. There is nothing worse than the smell of stale, old coffee and milk that you can't get out of those hard to reach places, which will definitely end up ruining your next coffee, especially if you use it every day like we do and there is a chance of residue building up. Having a clean flask to start with is crucial. The lid has a twist-to-lock function and a handle so you can easily carry it around.
Red means locked.
Top tip: I always fill the flask with boiling water while I brew my coffee, this lets the flask heat up nicely so you can seal your coffee in nice and hot without losing anything to the flask.
So far, we have literally used our Hydroflask, every single day since we got them and we are really loving how effective they are in allowing us to take our coffee and cold drinking water on our daily adventures to the beach and down the coast!
Hydroflasks are available form most leading sports and adventure retailers like Sportsmans Warehouse, Outdoor Warehouse and at online stores like Takealot.com
Next week we will be running a special Coffee Mag and Hydroflask adventure competition where you can WIN a few hydroflasks for yourself! Stay tuned!
