One thing that valued on the Oregon Trail was coffee. It had flavor and would be a comfort in a pinch when food supplies were low.  Of course, water and fuel for a fire were needed to make a pot of coffee.

The estimate for the length of the trail is 2,170 miles. Before I had said 2,000, but that wasn’t right.

A lot of travelers bought supplies in Independence, Missouri. There were stores that would have things that were needed for the trail.

Here is the National Park Service map of the Oregon Trail. I have put a circle around Independence. This is the starting place.

This is a prairie schooner, or covered wagon with the canvas cover rolled up. It gives and idea of how much room was in the wagon. You can see that there is a wooden barrel on the side. There is no information on what was in the barrel. The picture is from the National Park Service.

Here are the items you would need to make yourself a cup of coffee while traveling to Oregon.

I could only find this picture of green coffee beans in the public domain. Coffee was imported from the Caribbean and some beans were grown in a few southern states in the US. When you went to a store, you would get the green beans and would have to store them in an air and water tight container.

The coffee beans would have to be roasted to be able to make coffee. The way that they roasted the beans was to put some in a cast iron pan or skillet and roast them over the camp fire.

Cast Iron Pan with Lid  by, Jjacobsmeyer, Wikipedia Commons

Cast Iron Skillet, also called a pan  by, Evan-Amos, Wikipedia Commons

This shows what coffee beans look like when they are roasted.

The next thing to do was to grind the beans before making coffee. This is the of coffee grinder that would have been used.

Coffee Grinder  by, Myneck2, Wikipedia Commons

The last picture is a drawing of the items need for making coffee.