You’ve bought a great bag of coffee—but what’s the best way to keep it tasting that way?

We get this question almost every day in the café. The good news is you don’t need expensive equipment or special storage containers. A few simple habits will keep your coffee tasting fresher for longer, but those can help as well.

Whole Bean or Ground? It Makes a Difference

Overall, the golden rule for keeping coffee fresh at home is to keep it whole bean (or grind in smaller amounts), store it in an environment that is airtight, dry, cool and dark, and finally try to buy new coffee fresh every couple weeks. 

Coffee's Four Biggest Enemies

For ground coffee and whole bean alike, the main things to consider that I mentioned are light, moisture and oxygen.

1. Keep It Out of the Sun: In terms of light, it’s best to keep coffee out of the sun when you are storing it so that the UV and heat don’t degrade those delicate and wonderful flavours we love in our coffee. This can be avoided by using an opaque container or simply storing your coffee in a drawer or cupboard. 

2. Keep It Nice and Dry: As for moisture, it is important to make sure your coffee is staying dry. Coffee can kind of act like a sponge, in that it will soak up moisture fairly quickly. Whether it’s water or just the humidity in the air, moisture can be damaging to the coffee when you ultimately go to drink it. If coffee comes into contact with water before intended, it can begin to dull the flavours making it taste stale or just off. This is also easily avoidable by storing in an airtight container like a jar or air-tight tin.

3. Seal in the Freshness: An air-tight container also remedies our third problem of oxygen. Oxygen slowly oxidizes the aromatic compounds in coffee, causing it to taste flatter over time. 

4. Keep it Temperature Stable: All in all, keeping your coffee in a cool, dry and dark environment is good for temperature stability. If your coffee fluctuates too much in temperature, it can accelerate a decline in the quality of flavour. 

Taking Your Coffee on the Go?

We pack all our online orders in heat-sealed bags with a one-way degassing valve which lets carbon dioxide escape while preventing outside air from getting in. They’re designed to keep coffee fresh, so if you’re going to finish the bag within a few weeks, there’s no need to transfer it to another container. There is also this thing that people think once a heat seal bag is cut open, it's useless...it's not really true as the bag still has a zipper closure and the valve still works.

Fresh Coffee Doesn't Last Forever (And That's a Good Thing!)

All of this being said, no matter what you do, coffee doesn’t stay fresh forever. Keeping in mind that the darker the roast; the shorter the lifespan of the beans. The general rule of thumb is that once opened from a heat sealed bag or brought home, coffee beans last around four weeks, and ground lasts around two weeks. So, based on that, if you don’t have to, don’t buy more coffee than you will drink at that time! That way, along with proper storage, you can get the best longevity out of your coffee and your money.  

But, if you do prefer to buy coffee in bulk, then you can freeze (not refrigerate) it – given you go about it in the right way. There’s a lot of discourse around freezing coffee and it’s something people feel is either good or very bad for keeping coffee fresh. But, the main issue with freezing is condensation when thawing, or refreezing repeatedly. If you split up your bulk coffee into portioned air tight packages, vacuum sealed bags for example, you can freeze beans without compromising the flavour.   

The big thing to consider  when it comes to keeping coffee fresh is whether it is ground or not. Whole bean coffee stays fresher longer, due to ground coffee having a larger surface area and is thus more susceptible to light, oxygen and moisture exposure. The aforementioned are the big factors when it comes to negatively impacting coffee freshness. So, if you tend to keep your coffee for a long time before drinking it, keeping the beans whole is a good way to maintain freshness. You can buy grinders in store with us if you want to have one at home to use, or if you don’t want to give up the extra counter space, there are ways to keep ground coffee fresh as well. 

If you have any other questions please feel free to ask the next time you’re in – we’re always happy to answer!