Great, you've just invested in your first bag of specialty coffee, made yourself a bangin’ pour over and now you find yourself standing in front of the fridge wondering if you should be putting that open bag of coffee in there.
Let's cover the basics:
The taste you will get from coffee will change from the moment it’s roasted, however when buying specialty coffee freshest isn’t always best. Once roasted, coffee needs to go through a period of degassing before it reaches its peak deliciousness. You’ll notice our coffee bags all have a one way valve on them, this is there to allow those gases to escape from the coffee without letting air in. Generally coffee reaches its peak at about 15 days old, so keep this in mind when buying coffee. If you’re looking for a bag to drink straight away then you should be looking to buy a bag that's been aged about 10-15 days.
What does this mean for storing my coffee?
Well it’s good to keep in mind this idea of coffee degassing, aging or deteriorating when we talk about how we’re storing it. The cute vintage coffee canisters you got from the op shop are unfortunately not going to cut it, if you're pouring your coffee beans into those open (at least not airtight) canisters then it is going to allow rapid degradation of your coffee beans which means loss of flavour. Similarly bad is the practice of soring your coffee beans in glass jars, these being airtight have the opposite effect, these jars don’t allow the gases given off by coffee to escape and will hence damage the flavour of the coffee beans, jars are also bad for storage as they let in UV light which will also degrade your coffee beans.
Better than both of these options is to keep your coffee in the bag it came in, our retail coffee bags are resealable and are fitted with a one way valve to allow gases to escape. Once opened, reseal your bag and chuck it in your cupboard.
What about putting it in the fridge?
Putting your coffee in the fridge is not going to do a whole lot for preserving it, it's more of a moist environment which is not good for coffee and neither is that old fridge smell, our advice would be to keep your coffee out of the fridge altogether. The freezer however is a whole different kettle of fish; Putting your coffee in the freezer is actually pretty common practice among specialty coffee enthusiasts as it allows the barista to store coffee at that peak moment of deliciousness indefinitely. Although storing in the freezer works, you don’t want to be pulling it in and out of the freezer every time you use it as this warming and cooling is no good for the life of your coffee. The best way to utilise this is if you’re buying multiple bags at once, pop the ones you’re not using into the freezer then take the bags out of the freezer when you’re ready to use them, but once they’re out don’t put them back in.
Which way is the best though?
The best and most effective way for everyday use is to get yourself a proper coffee storage canister. There are a number of modern coffee storage canisters that minimise the aircontact your coffee is getting, whilst allowing any gases to escape and allows you to get that freshly opened bag taste every time. These canisters are fitted with one way valves to allow the coffee gases to escape and a few have ways in which to pump air out of them so that you are storing your coffee in a virtual vacuum. Our favorites are the Airscape or the Fellow Atmos Canister, which are both great bits of kit that I’d highly recommend getting, and you can pick up from our cafe or at our online shop.
