Fresh isn’t always best
You’ve probably heard a lot of coffee shops or coffee roasters talk about ‘fresh’ coffee a lot, and commonly we hear about how fresh coffee is the best coffee. But is it?
I’ll talk about one recent experience where I bought Colombia whole beans from a small company called Geo Coffee. Tasting notes mentioned milk chocolate, milky and nutty - all of which you would kind of expect from a medium. Now personally, I think medium roasted coffee is a fine balance between acidity and bitterness and I enjoy it with oat milk, so naturally I was excited to try out the Columbia beans. The coffee was delivered a few days and marked the roast date just two days ago. The general rule for freshly roasted coffee is to leave it to de-gas for about a week as carbon dioxide (CO2) are trapped inside the beans after roasting. You’ll find brewing a cup of coffee using coffee beans that was recently roasted may not taste very pleasant as the gases will mask all the flavours, leaving a bitter, sharp and smoky taste (note: everyone is different when it comes to tasting. I use these words to describe the flavours as that is what I experienced). So after about a week, I open the bag of coffee and brewed using the Aeropress. With any new coffee, I like to taste it plain first and use either pour over or Aeropress method to do this. The result? Not what I expected and a little disappointed at first. I swished the coffee around inside my mouth, let the coffee soak in my tongue before swallowing and yet, I got a ‘narrow’, lingering yet wholegrain type flavours. I brewed the coffee again two more times (on different days) as it may well have been the way I was brewing it, but still got the same flavours as before. Since I had other bags of coffee, I put aside this bag of coffee for the time being.
After about a month after drinking, I came back to the Colombia beans. Same, back to brewing with the Aeropress using the same method and upon tasting the cup of coffee, something had hit me. What was this flavour I was tasting that is so familiar? Roasted nuts, hint of chocolates and some dry fruit (just a bit) - all the flavours I was accustomed to and familiar with. I looked at the bag again to check if I picked up the right bag and it was the same Colombia medium roasted coffee beans from before. As I got excited, I brewed again but this time added frothed oat milk to make a ‘caffe latte’ and long and behold, it was FANTASTIC. I learned that coffee doesn’t always taste straight after being roasted and I believe it to be a common misconception. Some coffee tastes good three months after the roast date, some even longer (surprisingly).
If you are out shopping for fresh roasted coffee beans, don’t be put off by the roast date if it is a week or so old. In fact, coffee needs at least a week to de-gas (release trapped carbon dioxide) as it gives off an unpleasant taste (if anything, the shops are doing you a favour!)
