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How Long Is the Shelf Life of Coffee Beans? How to Brew Expired Beans for Better Taste? How Long Is the Resting Period?

Published: 2026-01-27 Author: FrontStreet Coffee

Last Updated: 2026/01/27, Due to the pandemic situation in Guangzhou previously (how many nucleic acid tests did everyone take in a month?), many customers stocked up on coffee beans at once. As everyone knows, roasted coffee beans have a flavor expiration period, and their flavor will decline beyond this period. Today's article will explain how to determine the flavor expiration period of coffee and how to salvage expired coffee beans. Generally speaking, coffee

Due to the pandemic situation in Guangzhou (how many nucleic acid tests have we all taken in a month?), many customers stocked up on coffee beans at once. As we all know, roasted beans have a flavor window, beyond which their flavor will decline. Today's article will explain how to determine the flavor window of coffee and how to rescue expired coffee beans.

General Coffee Flavor Window

For pour-over coffee beans, FrontStreet Coffee recommends a flavor window of 4-30 days. Generally, coffee doesn't have its best flavor immediately after roasting. Freshly roasted coffee beans contain more gases, making it difficult for flavor compounds to be extracted, so there's a 4-7 day degassing period to release some of these gases.

This degassing process is continuous, and during this process, some flavor compounds also evaporate along with the gases. This is why the longer coffee beans are stored, the worse their flavor becomes. When most of the gases have been released, the flavor window for this coffee bean has ended, which is approximately one month.

Theory and Practice of Coffee Flavor Window

Not all coffee beans have a flavor window of 4-30 days; this is just a general reference period. In reality, the flavor window of coffee is essentially the degassing time of the coffee beans. A longer flavor window means a longer degassing time. Of course, the flavor window is also influenced by factors such as bean quality, roasting technique, and storage method.

Different coffee beans from the same roaster may not have the same flavor window, and the same coffee bean roasted by different roasters may not have consistent flavor windows either. The impact of storage methods on flavor duration is quite familiar to buyers—coffee stored in cool, dry, and sealed conditions will have a longer flavor window than other storage methods.

How to Determine a Coffee Bean's Flavor Window

An excellent method is to observe the bloom. We all know that the purpose of blooming is to release gases from the coffee grounds. Fresh coffee beans will form a coffee "burger" (dome shape). Stale coffee beans (past their flavor window) will not expand. Some coffee beans have longer degassing periods, reaching 40-50 days, while others may not bloom as early as day 20. Therefore, for individuals, using the bloom to determine whether coffee is past its flavor window is a relatively scientific method.

Rescuing Coffee Beans Past Their Flavor Window

Generally, coffee beans within two months of roasting still retain most of their flavor (though lacking some more volatile aromas). Using normal brewing methods often results in bitter flavors like spices and almonds. Therefore, we can rescue these coffee beans by adjusting the brewing method.

This brewing method is suitable for coffee beans within two months of roasting that show no expansion during blooming. We still use 15g of coffee grounds, but the grind size should be one setting coarser than usual (for light roasts, 75% pass-through on a #20 standard sieve). Due to the lack of gas, fine particles easily clog the drainage holes. The coffee-to-water ratio and water temperature remain the same as usual.

Begin with the first water pour for blooming, injecting 25g of water and letting it bloom for 18 seconds. You can see that after the water contacts the coffee grounds, no "burger shape" is formed (we reduce the bloom time rather than eliminate the blooming process because although the coffee bed doesn't expand, there are still some gases present).

For the second pour, start from the center in small circles to push up the coffee bed, allowing fine particles to adhere to the filter paper walls, preventing them from settling at the bottom and clogging the drainage holes. You can see small bubbles being pushed out. Pour until reaching 150g.

Wait until the water level drops to halfway, then pour the final stage. Use medium water flow to quickly circle and create a vortex to "activate" the coffee bed, forcing out flavor compounds. Pour until reaching 225g, then stop pouring. Remove the filter cup once the coffee liquid has flowed into the lower pot. The total extraction time should be between 1 minute 35 seconds and 1 minute 50 seconds.

Although this brewing method won't restore the coffee to the rich, full flavors of its optimal flavor window, it largely avoids the appearance of defective flavors. If you have many coffee beans that you can't finish in time, try this method.