Which is more important: coffee shelf life or best-before period? How should you properly store purchased coffee beans?

Here's what happened: a customer stocked up on quite a bit of coffee before the May Day holiday, but unexpectedly, her friend returned from overseas travel and brought her several bags of coffee beans as souvenirs. With more than she could drink in the short term, she sent FrontStreet Coffee three pressing questions: Can coffee beans be stored in the refrigerator? Should they be refrigerated or frozen? How can they be stored more safely?

Understanding Coffee Freshness

To properly master coffee storage, we first need to understand our objective - what exactly we mean by "freshness," how long it takes for coffee to become stale, and what factors affect it. By eliminating incorrect operations, we can develop the most suitable "coffee freshness preservation plan" for ourselves.

What Are We Appreciating?

We all know that all coffee products from legitimate channels provide "expiration date" information, which every manufacturer must follow based on food labeling regulations. However, for those who truly drink coffee, what we've never feared is spoilage, but rather the loss of aroma. Therefore, all storage methods aim to preserve the precious aroma in coffee, extending its optimal flavor appreciation period as much as possible.

Because fresh beans not only possess rich coffee aroma but also contain large amounts of carbon dioxide gas, when coffee beans are within their optimal flavor period, we can actually collect evidence of their freshness during the brewing process, even without checking the roasting time.

For example, when pour-over coffee blooms during pre-infusion, it produces bubbles, and the water flow is smooth, making it easier for us to control extraction time (stale coffee drains faster); if making espresso, it will have a beautiful layer of golden crema, with more stable flow rate, and the coffee will emit rich and positive aromas at each stage.

Excluding external factors, these essence components will gradually dissipate within 40-50 days after roasting until completely depleted. Therefore, to extend the flavor period of coffee, we must first avoid its "natural enemies" within this timeframe: strong light, high temperature, moisture, oxygen, and odors.

Five "Harms" to Protect Coffee Aroma

Before opening the package, heat and light are the two main culprits that accelerate the dissipation of flavor gas molecules in coffee. Based on the principle of aroma preservation, we should store coffee away from sunlight and places that generate heat when storing it.

When we open the package, coffee beans come into direct contact with air, and moisture, oxygen, as well as surrounding odors will all take this opportunity to penetrate the packaging. Coincidentally, coffee happens to be quite "accepting" of all these components, always taking them in completely. Therefore, if we frequently open and reseal the package, the beans will either become damp or accelerate oxidation, or even absorb other flavors. Naturally, the brewed coffee will be significantly diminished in quality.

Generally speaking, after getting fresh coffee beans, FrontStreet Coffee recommends storing them in a sealed, cool, dry, and dark place, while reducing the number of times the seal is opened during use. Smart readers have probably already noticed that these operations are essentially preventive management against the five "natural enemies" mentioned above. As long as we ensure coffee beans are stored in a cool, ventilated, dry place without odors, we can achieve a relatively long flavor period.

Can Coffee Beans Be "Preserved" at Low Temperatures?

For other ingredients, life experience tells us we can put them in the refrigerator for low-temperature preservation. So can coffee beans be treated the same way?

Swiss scientist Samo Smrke concluded through experiments that freezing can extend the degassing rate of coffee beans by 12.5 times, which to some extent inhibits the internal aroma from moving outward. Therefore, theoretically, freezing can indeed "postpone" the flavor period of coffee.

So for the situation mentioned at the beginning of our friend's story, if you want roasted beans to remain delicious and drinkable after three to four months of storage, freezing should be a relatively safe and effective method. However, it's worth noting that even in a freezing space of minus ten degrees Celsius, it only slows down the rate of aroma dissipation and cannot completely prevent its loss. Moreover, if not handled properly, it can also lead to problems such as air leakage, moisture absorption, and flavor contamination in the beans, rendering all your efforts futile.

What to Pay Attention to When Refrigerating Coffee Beans?

1. For coffee storage, packaging is undoubtedly a key factor. To completely isolate coffee beans from air and other food odors in the refrigerator, FrontStreet Coffee recommends first sealing them in bags or vacuum-sealing them before placing them in the freezer.

2. When we take the beans out of the refrigerator, don't rush to open them. Wait for the vacuum bag to return to room temperature before pouring out the coffee beans for use. This way, we can avoid the risk of them getting wet from condensation.

3. For thawed coffee beans, it's best not to put them back in the refrigerator, and they should be consumed as soon as possible, because the flavor deterioration rate of these long-term low-temperature stored coffee beans will accelerate after returning to room temperature. If you can't consume the entire package quickly, we can weigh out the beans in single or small multiple portions before freezing, then package them independently in vacuum-sealed bags, opening them as needed.

Whenever FrontStreet Coffee sees someone unable to control their purchasing desires and frantically stocking up on beans, we can't help but kindly advise: Don't buy too much, there will be special offers next time~

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