Buying Roasted Coffee

If you buy roasted coffee regularly, here’s some tips for how to find freshly roasted beans, and how to keep your roasted coffee fresh for as long as possible. You can buy roasted coffee almost anywhere these days – certainly in every supermarket and in virtually every corner store, and even service stations.
At the time of writing, you can buy a kilo pack at my local supermarket for as low $15, so why would you bother seeking out websites like Ministry Grounds or one of the growing number of special cafes that roast their own unique blends or single origins, when their product costs 2, 3 or 4 times as much?

Before green becomes brown roasted coffee

A big part of the answer is understanding the nature of roasted coffee. Before it’s roasted, raw or green coffee is relatively stable. Keep it in a stable environment and it can retain much of its qualities for several months. Some green coffee – like much of the output from the huge Daterra estate in Brazil – is vacuum packed in foil pouches to retain moisture and exclude oxygen. This kind of treatment allows the green coffee to stay fresh for several years.

Roasting Coffee – Turning the beans brown

But as soon as green coffee is roasted, the game changes dramatically. The process of a craftsman-like approach to roasting fine coffee is far more than just turning beans brown! It’s a carefully thought through and meticulously executed process. As delicate and precisely timed as the best dishes prepared by the finest chefs. And the result deserves to be treated well so it can deliver the best it has to offer in our espresso machines, plungers, Aeropresses, pourovers and syphons.

What to look for when buying roasted coffee

So having talked up the humble pack of roasted coffee, how do you tell the really good stuff from the ordinary dross?
With few exceptions, you just can’t buy seriously good roasted coffee in a supermarket, so that eliminates them as a source of good coffee. Why? Because perhaps the biggest single factor in fine coffee is freshness. And while supermarkets do an ok job at keeping dairy, deli and other goods fresh, coffee doesn’t fit into that thinking for them. Much of the coffee sold in Australian supermarkets is actually roasted overseas – and that fact alone guarantees that it will be stale. And if you think that those vac-packed bricks of roasted coffee is evidence of freshness, think again. Fresh coffee can’t be a vac-packed brick, because freah coffee is actually giving off CO2 while it’s fresh. A solid vac pack means it is no longer de-gassing.

And lastly, have you ever seen a ‘roasted on’ date on a pack of supermarket coffee? No, I haven’t either, and that’s because the roaster doesn’t want you to know how long ago it was roasted!

Packaging is important too, because fresh roasted coffee has a shelf life of just 2-4 weeks (as whole beans), what it is packed in is important. The package should have a one-way valve to allow the degassing of the fresh coffee, but it should also keep outside air outside the pack to slow down the staling process. These same principles apply wherever you buy your roasted coffee, so let me summarise:

• Preferably buy directly from the people who are roasting the coffee. Chances are they take pride in their product.
• Look for a ‘roasted on:’ date on the pack. If there isn’t one, shop elsewhere.
• Look for a resealable pack that also has a one-way valve in the side. That allows the fresh coffee to degas while keeping the oxygen outside.
• Look for good information about the blend or single origin bean on the pack, not just a sales pitch.

How to store fresh roasted coffee

So, you have found a great source of  fresh coffee, now what? As mentioned, fresh roasted coffee has a shelf life of between 2-4 weeks. To maximise that, buy your coffee as whole beans and grind them as you need. That makes a huge difference in how fresh the coffee stays. Once ground, coffee stales in a matter of minutes, not days! You can start with an economical hand grinder or a more sophisticated electric grinder.

If you buy your coffee in a resealable pouch with a one-way valve, you can store the coffee in that while you use it. Just squeeze the air out of the pack as you reseal it, and put the pack in a dark, dry, cool place, such as your pantry.

Storing roasted coffee beans in the fridge?

Never store fresh coffee in the fridge! Roasted coffee is hydroscopic – it absorbs moisture – and that means it will absorb all those other odours and flavours floating around your fridge. Ever tried garlic flavoured coffee?!

Resting coffee

Finally, a word about resting coffee. Based on what I’ve written above, you would think that the best coffee would be the bag that comes still warm, straight from the roaster. That’s actually not the case, and roasted coffee needs to rest for a while – for anywhere between 2-10 days. There’s lot’s of discussion about this question, but the principle is simple: There is a big difference between ‘resting’ coffee after roasting and allowing coffee to go stale.

Coffee goes stale primarily when it’s exposed to oxygen. Pre-ground, poorly stored or just plain old coffee are all likely to be stale.

Resting coffee is totally different. Resting is allowing the complex chemical changes started by the roasting process to continue to modify and develop the flavour profile of the coffee. Resting should happen with the coffee stored properly (in a cool place, protected from light and from as much oxygen as possible). Some coffee requires minimal resting of 2-3 days after roasting. Other coffees – often the more exotic, Special Reserve-style beans – benefit from up to 10+ days of resting before they are at their peak.

In the end it’s personal taste, but I would suggest tasting fresh roasted coffee over a period of days, keeping the brew method and dosing constant, and see for yourself the changes that occur.

Ministry Grounds coffee is committed to supplying high quality coffee roasted to order and shipped anywhere in Australia. We pack it in zip-lock, one-way valved pouches, and guarantee it’s freshness and quality.

Do email us with any questions you have about buying, storing or drinking excellent quality specialty roasted coffee.