The Science of Coffee Bean Packaging Design: How to Package Coffee Beans and Packaging Costs

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Coffee beans may appear hard and impermeable, seemingly invincible to external elements, but beneath their dark brown exterior lies a remarkably fragile product. Roasted coffee beans are highly susceptible to oxidation from oxygen in the air, causing aroma loss and flavor deterioration. This is especially true for decaffeinated coffee beans, which undergo additional processing and oxidize even more rapidly and severely.

To maintain the aroma and quality of coffee beans, the packaging of freshly roasted beans has become a sophisticated science. Coffee packaging serves a similar purpose to human clothing - just as we dress for warmth, modesty, aesthetics, and even social status, coffee packaging must facilitate storage and transport while preventing air exposure and oxidation. Beyond these practical functions, packaging design aims to create visual appeal that entices customers to make a purchase.

● BLUE BOTTLE - Famous American Coffee Chain

Coffee beans, especially ground coffee, are extremely sensitive, fragile, and delicate. We handle, brew, and enjoy them daily without realizing the tremendous effort and expertise invested in their packaging by dedicated professionals. So what constitutes ideal packaging? Early coffee packaging was crude - simple paper or plastic bags. Over time, people discovered that coffee gradually lost its aromatic qualities when stored this way. The solution seemed obvious: can it like fish or meat to completely seal out air. However, this approach also proved flawed because coffee beans release carbon dioxide gas equivalent to three times their volume after roasting. When beans are immediately canned to preserve freshness, the gradual release of carbon dioxide would force open the can seams, allowing oxygen to enter and compromise quality. Some coffee manufacturers tried letting beans cool and degas before canning, but by the time carbon dioxide dissipated, the original aroma had already escaped, and oxygen had already begun deteriorating the beans, making them stale and flavorless - a problem no canning could reverse.

● illy

World's largest Italian espresso producer

Ingenious coffee merchants devised another solution: immediately grind roasted beans into powder and can them, then use vacuum methods to extract air from the cans. However, typical canned vacuum packaging cannot achieve 100% vacuum - at best, it removes about 90% of the air. Since coffee powder has a much larger surface area than whole beans, even the remaining oxygen can easily interact with the powder and affect taste and aroma. Some coffee manufacturers found cans too space-consuming and in the 1950s invented soft metal bags for coffee beans, using vacuum extraction to remove air and compress the contents into brick-like packages. These produced similar results to cans - they still couldn't completely block air.

Subsequently, coffee manufacturers tried designing pinholes in soft metal bags, filling them with inert nitrogen gas during packaging to expel carbon dioxide through the pinholes. However, once all gases were expelled, oxygen would silently seep back in through the same pinholes.

● Bucket-style coffee compatible with grinders

In the late 1960s, two more ideal coffee packaging solutions finally emerged, both packaging whole beans rather than powder. One method involves using expensive machinery to rapidly cool roasted whole beans before immediately canning them, then pressurizing the cans with inert nitrogen or carbon dioxide gas to completely exclude oxygen. The other solution was invented by an Italian engineer: a one-way valve metal bag similar to the pinhole design, but with the crucial difference that gases could escape from inside while oxygen from outside could not enter. Coffee manufacturers would immediately cool and bag roasted beans, filling the bags with nitrogen to help expel other gases.

Understanding how foreign coffee manufacturers exhaust themselves researching packaging solely to preserve roasted bean aroma makes one consider how many traditional domestic coffee shops operate. These establishments maintain over a dozen varieties like Blue Mountain and Mandheling in glass jars or plastic containers for extended periods, repeatedly opening and closing them as customers place orders. By then, the beans have already oxidized and their aroma has dissipated, yet they remain unaware of this degradation. One can only imagine how heartbroken those foreign manufacturers, who agonize over packaging design, would be to see such waste!

● Recommended Packaged Coffee Bean Brands

FrontStreet Coffee's freshly roasted single-origin and espresso packaged coffee beans - including Yirgacheffe, Brazilian, and Mandheling coffees - offer excellent guarantees in both brand and quality, suitable for brewing with various equipment. More importantly, they offer exceptional value: a half-pound (227g) package costs only 80-90 yuan. Calculating at 15 grams per pour-over cup, one package yields approximately 15 cups, meaning each specialty coffee costs only about 6 yuan. Compared to typical café prices of 30-40 yuan per cup, this represents exceptional value.

FrontStreet Coffee: A Guangzhou-based roastery with a small shop but diverse bean varieties, offering both famous and lesser-known beans, plus online services at https://shop104210103.taobao.com

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473