I drink 3-4 cups using an espresso machine at home, but whenever I travel I find that my 3-cup moka pot makes almost as good tasting coffee consistently. Some tips:
seconding the paper filter. it perfectly fits my 3-cup pot.
it slows down the process a little, I found, which means the pot gets hotter and burns a little. I found that pouring out the coffee ASAP as it comes out -- like, let it run for a few seconds, pour, fill again, repeat until finished -- gets a better product.
but you don't get any particulate, and the flavor is much smoother. not sure if it's raising the pressure significantly enough to impact extraction, but wouldn't be surprised if it can bump it up +0.5 BAR or more.
- use a quality hand grinder; I have comandante: https://twitter.com/sridca/status/1743941231112273969
- put the Aeropress paper filter in the moka filter so you don't get grinds in your coffee.
- get freshly roasted beans.