Does coffee go off?
Coffee will ultimately degrade over time but, how long that takes depends on a number of things..
There are lots of views on how long you can keep coffee for before it starts to loose its freshness and ultimately its taste. Some people will have you thing that is going off within 2 weeks of purchase and while I don't subscribe to that school of thought, you do need to be aware of that it does degrade and therefore what you can do to help preserve it.
Coffee can also be too fresh. Most small batch roasters like us will tell you they roast to order and we do. However, freshly roasted coffee still contains carbon dioxide that's built up during the roasting process. We do roast to order but always leave the coffee for a few days to de-gas before we ship it to customers
Buy whole beans
Ok so no everyone has a grinder at home. Unfortunately ground coffee will go noticeably stale within a couple of weeks and that amazing single origin coffee you enjoyed the week before is now flat stale and only just drinkable. Ground coffee absorbs oxygen faster than whole beans and the integrity of the coffee and its flavour will degrade through oxidization.
Oxidation
Don't let your beans breathe.
Coffee beans are normally sold in resealable airtight bags or containers and this is to prevent them being exposed to oxygen. If you need to remove the beans from their packaging then store them in an airtight container and only remove and use what you need at the time of brewing.
Keep out of the light
As with oxygen, coffee prefers the darkness, that's why we ship out coffee in packaging that has no transparent windows. Keep your coffee in in the bag it came or an airtight tin or container that isn't transparent. If you store yours in a glass container, consider keeping this in a cupboard.
Don't keep it in the fridge
Roasted coffee is quite porous and will easily absorb moisture and smells from other products. Your fridge is a haven for both so should be avoided
Only buy what you need
Most if not all of the issues above can be avoided by drinking your coffee quickly. Our advise is to only buy what you plan to drink in a 2-3 week period. That way you will avoid any of chance of the coffee going stale, even if you are not that careful with storage. Bit of a pain, the sign up to one of our subscriptions or one of the many great subscriptions you can find online. You'll get fresh coffee sent to you at the frequency that suits your consumption.
Don't fret
Yes coffee does go stale. But if you are a regular coffee drinker its not going to go off quick enough to worry about. I've pulled bags of coffee from the shelf that I've forgotten I had and been surprised at how good it tastes months after roasting (6 months and longer) and maybe its lost some if the character it had in the weeks after roasting, its still be a great cup of coffee. Taste is subjective, find what works for you.
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