Sell, Sell, Sell: Tips for Keeping Your Coffee Fresh

A quick guide on how to properly store large volumes of coffee with minimal flavor loss. Continue reading for strategies on keeping your beans fresh…

Coffee is a sensitive ingredient. Improper storage can greatly impact the quality of your coffee. Thanks to our Just-In-Time delivery model here at BRISK, our beans arrive at your door the freshest they can be. However, once they’re in your care, it’s up to you to ensure they stay that way.

Stale coffee is not something you want to serve your customers. Plus, it can result in a wasted product that cuts into your bottom line. In this quick guide, we’ll look at the biggest dangers to your coffee’s flavor and some tips to help avoid them.

One of the biggest dangers to your coffee’s flavor is pre-stacking your filters. Stacking filters is when an operator pre-fills the coffee grounds into filters and stacks them in preparation for brewing, making the coffee exposed to oxygen, odors, and aromas in the kitchen and moisture.

Thankfully, we here at Brisk Coffee Roasters packs our coffee in an easy to open metalized bag which minimizes any possible breaches or moisture, air or aromas. Avoid the temptation to pre-stack your filters! Open the coffee bags as needed and you will always serve fresh, delicious coffee to your customers.

representing Keeping Your Beans Fresh

Know Your Enemy for Keeping Your Beans Fresh

It’s common knowledge that coffee quickly loses flavor after being roasted, however, the root cause of this loss may not be. There are 4 major factors to consider for your coffee storage practices. They are light, heat, moisture, and air. Each of these factors has its own effects on your beans which we will explore in greater detail.

Light

Light, or more specifically the UV radiation produced by sunlight and some artificial bulbs, can cause your beans to deteriorate rapidly. These harmful rays can cause the natural oils that give coffee its rich body to oxidize quickly.

The result is a brew that tastes stale and has less of the oily body often associated with darker roasts. Direct lighting can also result in heat gain inside your container, another factor that causes significant flavor loss.

Heat

Heat, like light, directly affects the natural oils present in your coffee (removed beans). For instance, it can cause them to evaporate quickly and coat the inside of the container. This is a problem when you’d rather those delicious body imparting oils be present in your brew.

Too much heat on your coffee grounds also excites the delicate aromatic particles present in coffee. This can cause off-gassing that will result in beans going stale faster and losing flavor more quickly.

Moisture

Moisture can quickly ruin your coffee, especially once it has been ground. Too much moisture will promote mold growth which can spoil a batch of beans in no time flat. However, the opposite can also be true.

If moisture levels are too low, your coffee will begin to dry out and lose their flavor potency. While it may be tempting to put your beans in a refrigerator or freezer to protect them from light and heat, this can result in condensation forming. Condensation on the coffee when they are taken out of storage will increase the moisture levels in the container.

Air

Finally, air, more specifically oxygen, is the most prevalent danger to the quality of your beans in storage. Exposure to oxygen causes the volatile organic compounds that form the backbone of coffee’s flavor to rapidly deteriorate through oxidation.

Put simply, when coffee is exposed to air, you start to lose aromatic and flavor compounds. It also affects the natural oils of a bean, oxidizing them and causing them to develop a rancid taste.

How to Conquer Heat, Moisture & Air for Keeping Your Beans Fresh

Fortunately, coffee enthusiasts the world over have battled with these problems for decades and come up with plenty of solutions.

Container

*The best container is a Brisk Coffee Roasters metalized polypropylene bag. Our packaging is formulated to create an effective barrier against air, light, moisture and aromas.

Location

*Coffee stored in our fractional coffee bags and in a storage area free from light, moisture and heat is ideal. In addition, make sure your coffee is always rotated so you brew the oldest inventory first.

Hopefully, this guide will help you store your coffee with minimal flavor loss so you can deliver your best to your customers days or even weeks after your shipment comes in. If you have any questions about how to always have fresh coffee at hand, contact us today.

For more tips on keeping your beans fresh and how to sell fresh coffee, check out our resources:

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