November 18, 2020
You might have bought the highest-quality beans and the perfect brewer, but, if you rely on stale coffee, your cup will taste like sadness. Harsh but true… and completely avoidable.
Let us show you how to keep coffee fresh by storing it properly so that your cup of joe will never lack that special flavor and distinctive aroma.
If we compare good coffee to a knight in shining armor saving us from the distress of starting the day with a bad brew, the villains of the story are heat, air, moisture and light.
Basically, once the beans have been roasted, they slowly start losing carbon dioxide as well as the other gases that were formed inside them during the process.
Losing some CO2 is actually preferable for extraction, which is why you shouldn’t drink your coffee less than 24h after it was roasted. If too much of it is gone, however, you’ve also lost most of the volatile compounds that add nuances to your coffee’s flavor and aroma.
Those four agents speed up these chemical reactions, so, to keep your coffee fresh, you must protect it from them.
To keep coffee beans fresh for up to a month, you must store them in airtight containers that don’t let the light in and keep them at room temperature in a pantry or a cupboard.
Opaque glass jars can work, but investing in proper airtight storage canisters will definitely pay off. Either way, avoid placing them on the spot on your countertop that always ends up in direct sunlight from the window or in the cupboard right next to the oven.
It really does make a difference.
Many coffee drinkers are accustomed to freezing their beans, but we usually recommend avoiding this process: normal home freezers will still let oxygen in, and the build-up of moisture can compromise the final taste of your coffee.
However, if you’ve just bought too many coffee beans and you don’t think you’ll be able to drink them within a month, freezing them is your next best option. Just make sure you don’t open the container once you’ve placed it in the freezer.
Keeping ground coffee fresh isn’t any different from storing your beans. However, as if four enemies weren’t enough, grinding speeds up coffee degassing, too.
Instead of lasting up to a whole month, ground coffee could go a bit stale a couple of weeks after roasting, so make the most of it while it’s at its full flavor!
To keep coffee pods fresh, you must simply store them in a cool, dry place away from direct sunlight (not in the fridge!).
You can keep brewed coffee fresh by leaving it in a thermal carafe for an hour or two. While you can technically keep brewed coffee in the fridge for around a week, we really don’t recommend it, as it’ll compromise its flavor (unless it’s a cold brew, of course!).
Now that you know how to keep coffee fresh, we’re sure you’ll be able to taste the difference, and you’ll never settle for the stale grounds that have been sitting on the shelf of your corner store for months. The trick is to purchase freshly-roasted coffee periodically instead of buying it in bulk and ending up with flavorless beans or grounds.
Don’t want to risk running out of your favorite java? Check out our practical subscription model! When you buy our coffee, you can choose a frequency that best suits your drinking habits. Perfect to always start your day with a barista-worthy cup of freshly-roasted coffee!
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