When you purchase your produce at the grocery store you always pick-up the freshest piece, and many of you may even steer away from a bag of pre-cut and packaged veggies or fruit. Why then do many people purchase coffee beans that have sat on the grocer’s shelf for months or that have already been ground?
At Legacy Chocolates we roast our quality beans in small batches multiple times per week for freshness, and they are always available to our customers the very day after roasting. They never last in-store more than a few days – in whole bean form.
It is recommended to brew coffee within the first two weeks after roasting. After that you will notice the taste start to dissipate and stale, along with a decline in the coffee’s flavor. There is a difference between getting stale and going bad. Be sure you are not drinking anything rancid.
Dark roasted coffee has long been the grocery store standard since it takes longer for the aromatics and compounds to break down. However, dark roasted beans have the unique flavors from the country of origin and processing method literally roasted out from them. Instead, you get a roasty (often burnt) flavor instead. Light to medium roasted coffee has gained huge momentum in recent years because they retain the flavor characteristics of their origin countries. Flavor comes at a cost. These flavors break down more quickly.
Once your coffee is opened and introduced to oxygen, the shelf life timer begins to tick. Storing coffee in hot, humid, or sunlight areas will only make matters worse. The best way to keep your coffee fresh is to store it in a container that is air tight and will remain cool – but not in the refrigerator.
Do you typically buy your coffee already ground? With a far greater surface area of coffee coming in contact with the oxygen, those grounds are going to stale much quicker than whole beans will. An option would be to invest in a simple hand or electric grinder. Otherwise, if you are purchasing our freshly-roasted Legacy beans we can grind them for you in-store.
At Legacy Chocolates we believe freshness contributes to quality. Of course, you will need to start with properly-roasted beans, but you should only be grinding the amount of coffee that you will need for that serving – whether it’s for one, or for six. At our café we only make our coffee one cup at a time. Therefore, our motto that you will find on our cup sleeves is ‘Cup-At-A-Time. Pots Are For Plants’.
