Photo by Julius Schorzman/Wikimedia
First, PLEASE don't pretend that buying ground coffee is a negligible compromise. It's not. It is the single largest component of freshness, and it's under your control. If you're not willing to take the effort to grind your coffee just before brewing, you should ask yourself how important flavor and taste actually are to you.
It is often frustrating for those of us in specialty coffee to go to such lengths to get the freshest coffee to customers, and then have many customers choose convenience over flavor by buying ground coffee. Perhaps I should be consoled that no one was able to buy coffee beans in a supermarket until about 1980. But I want it all--or, more correctly, I want you to get all the flavor you deserve.
Just last weekend, an acquaintance reminded me how I had encouraged him to buy a grinder and grind his beans before brewing. Norm was ecstatic at the improved flavor. One more convert for fresh flavor! And of course, Norm is not the first to offer this ringing endorsement.
Not all consumers in all parts of the country have the same access to fresh foods, so here are a few suggestions for maximizing freshness wherever you shop.I'll try to make it as simple as I can, but coffee is complicated. The simple exhortation for freshness might lead some to roast at home, but that has its own compromise. Professional coffee buyers and roasters spend significant effort developing their sources for exceptional coffees, buying and blending carefully and roasting to high standards--all before we get into the freshness discussion. Home roasters and smaller companies do not have the access to as wide a range of the best coffees. Shipping coffee from the tropics in less than container load quantities, as we had to do the early years, exposes the coffee to many perils of contamination, starting with weather. [Curator's note: It makes a mess! Roasting, I decided after long trial and mostly error, is something you shouldn't try at home.]
I depend on excellent coffees, straight or combined into great blends, roasted by experienced professionals. There is no way I could duplicate these results at home, despite my own experience. I would only roast at home if I was not in range of a UPS or USPS truck.
But not all consumers in all parts of the country have the same access to fresh foods, so here are a few suggestions for maximizing freshness wherever you shop. One overall observation is that low price may not indicate high value.
If in a shop:
• Get to know the company. Visit its website. Some shops are more dedicated to freshness and quality than others. When you walk in, try to form your own impression the same way you would in a restaurant or market. If you like the coffee, establish a relationship and get to learn more about the company and the coffee.
• Observe the way beans are displayed: best practice is a closed container to minimize the effect of circulating air, away from sources of heat (not in the sun) and moisture.
• Buy beans.
• Ask the roast date. Careful shops will mark their bins so they are able to tell you. Shorter is better.
If ordering via the Internet/telephone:
• Know your roaster. Quality roasters go to great lengths to move their coffee from their roasters to their stores or to customers at home as quickly as possible. Coffee is perishable, and they know it.
• Ask how soon the coffee is shipped after roasting. Check the roast date when the coffee arrives.
• Buy beans.
Drink Fresh!
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I found myself on that path to freshness and it did lead to roasting. Not THAT hard and not that messy. I can get an assortment of green beans at my local farmer's market or mail order and the roaster was less than $100. Throw in the AeroPress and it makes for a nice coffee day!
IMO, your first sentence is what makes the entire single serving coffee maker fad a non-starter for me. Sure, there's the environmental waste of individual packaging every serving. But no matter the convenience advantages, pre-ground coffee that has been sitting in trucks and store shelves for weeks just kills it for me.
The coffee pod makers try to gloss over this fact by saying their capsules are "vacuum sealed", but so was a 1981 can of Sanka. As a result, there has always been a staleness to this format that I've come to avoid where possible.
Oddly, the way around it has been the subculture of people making their own "ghetto pods" -- using their own freshly ground coffee. But any consumable that lifts a page from the ink jet printer playbook has FAIL written all over it.
I'm in total agreement with this--we've been grinding our own beans for over 25 years, after a relative started buying beans at a local roaster. It was a novelty and seemed cool back then, but we've never looked back. I do usually grind the beans the night before, at least during the workweek--5:30 a.m. is too early for me!
I'd be interested in a recommendation for a coffee grinder. We've recently retired our old original Krups grinder, and purchased a Cuisinart. It's not better or worse, just different...for whatever reason (position of the blade, maybe) it takes longer to finely grind the beans, but unlike the Krups is much easier to clean. It was dirt cheap, too.
One other thing....Jerry says "no one was able to buy coffee beans in a supermarket until about 1980", but I could swear I remember seeing coffee grinders similar to the ones you see in stores today, alongside the Eight O'Clock coffee in supermarkets in Milwaukee all the way back in the 60's. It seems to me that my grandfather used to buy it....but that was a long time ago, and I could be mistaken.
Great advise! In Italy and Austria - supermarkets have grounding machines at the end of the till and coffee houses right next to their coffee machines. What else? Still - unless you know how to prepare it - you can loose all the advantages of freshly grounded beans. Cross the border between the two neighboring countries mentioned above, literally just the border, less than a mile, and order coffee. One will be just coffee and the other will send you to heaven for a few minutes.
@Barbd depending on how much you want to spend, grinders vary a lot in price. i bought a mazzer mini 4 years ago and haven't looked back (http://www.coffeegeek.com/proreviews/detailed/mazzermini). back then one could get it for under $500...today's prices are much more, it seems. but i expect my MM to last me 30+ years...and the grinds you get from this machine are cafe-quality. in fact, my local coffee shop uses a few of these...
Thanks but let's get serious for those who've been grinding for ages. Here are some of the big fat questions:
1. Shorter roasting time is better, but what's the outer limit? I say three weeks.
2. Which Starbucks' blend is best, beanwise? I vote for their Espresso Blend -- it's just like Brazilian coffee, the good stuff, not the export garbage. (I mean buy the beans and grind them at home, don't drink it there, for God's sake! And make them take the beans out of the scoop bag, not the fancy ones that've been sitting on the shelves for six months.)
3. You're stuck in Traverse City and only one supermarket is open and you've got to have coffee tomorrow morning or die. What should you buy? I think it's a tossup between El Pico and Bustelo, but would love to hear some new ideas.
Ever since our trip to Italy my husband and I have been on a quest to recreate what the amazing beverage that so ubiquitously flowed there. First, we bought the stovetop Bialetti espresso maker. Made a much richer, strong cup of coffee. Then we ditched our old Braun grinder and got a Burr grinder instead-- that made a huge difference. Instead of creating lots of friction, and essentially burning the coffee as it grinds, the burr grinder shaves each bean. That also improved the flavor dramatically. Finally, just like Jerry tells it, I discovered that our local Whole Foods roasts their own beans, and lists the date of the roasting. I get beans that were roasted same day. Again, significant improvement in flavor. I've cut down on doing all the groceries at Whole Foods because it's just so expensive, but the coffee is one thing I will never scrimp on again.
Sadly, it makes even Starbucks seem a little bland in comparison.
@Michelle - by home roasting, you're getting all the wonderful goodness that you like from the whole foods beans at less than half the cost. and, it allows you to try a wide variety of origins, make your own blends, etc. based on my calculations with my first roaster, the iRoast2, i paid off the roaster in about 10 months with the money we were saving by home roasting. plus, they make great, inexpensive gifts!