Easy Tips on Convenient Coffee Storage

November 01, 2016 3 min read

Easy Tips on Convenient Coffee Storage

We recently received a question on how to store our coffee.  I thought it'd be a great conversation to share as I know it's a common question people have about coffee. Here's the conversation:

Question:  Hello, The delicious aroma of coffee is all around my kitchen! Thank you shipping the coffee so quickly. This is the first time I've had 3 fresh bags at one time, so am wondering what the best way is to store it?
Thanks again,
Answer:  Hi, congratulations on getting the 3 for $35 deal! It really is the best deal for fresh roasted coffee fast. So since we grind your coffee prior to shipping, you may notice some loss in flavor from your first bag to your third bag, depending on how quickly you use up your supply. Like you, I pre-grind my coffee for my pour-over for a couple of reasons- I don't have a grinder at home and I like to make a cup of coffee first thing in the morning as fast as I can. Nothing wrong with that.
So I think this would be the best case scenario for you- Use the first bag and keep that out. With the other two, put them in an air-tight container like a ziploc bag. Then put that ziploc bag in a cool place for storage. You're in WA state, so that cool place can probably be anywhere in your kitchen at this time of year. During the summer, that cool place can be in a cupboard or cabinet. I wouldn't use the fridge or freezer though, just because it's cool in those places but when you take the coffee out, condensation will draw some of the oils (flavor) out of the coffee as it warms up to room temp.  
I hope that answers your question. Feel free to respond with any other questions or comments.  

I know what you're going to say, Pre-grind your coffee!?!  I know, but I do it quite often at home.  I'm looking at hand grinders now, but in the meantime, I've been grinding my coffee a couple times a week for my morning pour-over.  And to tell you the truth, I don't think the coffee suffers at all.  In fact, at our shop, we pre-grind our coffee at least an hour in advance.  I personally think it tastes and brews better.

At our shop, Seven Market & Cafe, we always have fresh coffee on hand.  We purposefully grind our drip coffee 1 to 2 hours before brewing.  At that point, the bloom is active but not nuclear reactive...where the reaction looks like a mushroom cloud.  

So to re-cap our easy recommendation for storing coffee:

  • Store your coffee, whole beans or grounds, in an air-tight container.  You can get fancy containers, or just use a ziploc bag.  
  • Store the container in a cool, dry place.  The fridge or freezer is not recommended.

There are quite a few coffee storage canisters on the market.  Just check Amazon and you'll see quite a few.  I've used a couple different ones over the years.  Recently I've used this Friis Coffee Vault for about a year before I broke the clasp off.  I bought and gave this Blink One Coffee Canister as a gift.  It seemed pretty solid.  

The best coffee storage container, in my opinion, is actually free!  Currently we use a large Adam's Peanut Butter jar at home.  I think it's a 36 oz size or something.  Basically it's an old school glass jar.  We can toss it in the dishwasher to clean.  If it breaks, we eat a lot of peanut butter, so we can get another one for free.  It's air-tight and dry.  I like the glass because we can gauge very easily how much coffee we have left, as long as we keep it out of the sun and in a cool, dry place.  It's perfect!

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