We all know that fresh coffee is best, right?

Well maybe…

This topic is a bit opinion-y and subjective, but through my entire hot beverage career I’ve always been an advocate for ageing your coffee. Ageing coffee can improve how the coffee reacts, how it brews, and most importantly how it tastes. I should add that this applies only to whole bean coffee, ground is a whole ‘nother kettle of fish, as a general recommendation, aim to use ground coffee as quickly as possible!

So what do we mean when we say ageing coffee? Put it in a cellar along with your fine wines for 20 plus years? Not quite. Although coffee is considered a dry good, (i.e has a phenomenal shelf life, think rice and sugar), it’s chock full of volatile aromatic compounds, these are the things that give us yummy flavour notes like pineapple, berries, chocolate etc. However, the volatile part of them, doesn’t mean they’ll explode in your face, it means they’re short lived. They’ll dissipate into the air over time.

“But Will!” I hear you cry, “that’s you saying we shouldn’t age coffee”.

True, but on the other side of the coffee coin we have the ‘too fresh’ issue. During the roasting process, Carbon Dioxide is trapped in coffee, which is mostly released in brewing. It’s the crema in your ‘spro, or the bloom in your manual brew. However, really fresh coffee has too much of this, and CO₂ isn’t the most pleasant flavour. Have you ever accidentally drank flat mineral water? ~Yummmmmo~ , CO₂ is pretty sour, bitter and in high enough quantities, pretty acrid. Don’t believe me? Try drinking just the crema of your next espresso.

Alrighty, so what does this all actually mean?

Coffee has a window from its roast date:

0-7 days from the roast date, likely to be sour, salty, and generally unpleasant, like a glass of flat fizzy drink.
7-14 days from the roast date, oooh we’re in Yummy Town, population you.
14-21 days from roast date, still delish, we’ve lost a bit of aroma and flavour but still *chefs kiss*
21 days - 2 months, still brewble but have lost considerable flavour, try grinding finer for older beans.
2 - 6 months, nothing really changes in this time, you’ve lost most of those delicious and desirable aromatic compounds after 60 days. Won’t hurt to drink it, but definitely won’t blow your mind.
6+ months, nothing bad will happen to you if you drink this, you just might start your day with a very average cup o’ joe. Have you considered composting?

Again this is all subjective, me personally, I’m a 10-14 day for filter, 14-21 day espresso kinda guy. But experiment, have a go at home!

Ever wondered why your home brew tastes different even though you’ve repeated the process identically? Could be this.

Is fresh best?...