Ok so this might not be the most original of experiments, but I wanted to try it for myself and share it with you nonetheless.
Yesterday I filled 9 oneway valve bags and filled each with 100g with coffee before sealing them. The coffee I used was a La Esperanza CoE, Colombia roasted on the 8th of August. I placed three of the bags in the freezer,
three in the fridge
and three on the shelf out of the sunlight in our cupping room.
I’ll be opening the door of the freezer and the fridge each day at least to mimic normal behavior in the kitchen of our customers. I know there are several weak points to this test, but it is not meant to be 100% scientific. It’s more of a fun project that hopefully will give some answer and perhaps some surprises.
Over the next four weeks we’re going to cup them to test how the different storage methods has affected them. I’ll post our cupping notes after each cupping. We’ll open the first three bags (one from each storage version) on the 29th of August (two weeks into the experiment), then another three on the 5th of September (three weeks in) and the last three on the 12th of September (after four weeks).
The purpose is to see what is the best to recommend our customers when they ask how to store their coffee. Our normal answer is to buy small quantities and drink it within roughly two weeks after the roast date, but there are always people who insist to do it differently for one reason or the other. I’d like to try to find out for myself what is the optimal way for storing your beans over longer periods of time.
Hopefully this will make for some interesting posts in the coming weeks.
All pictures are taken by Chris Kolbu (http://www.flickr.com/photos/flippantfiasco) who is a barista at the espresso bar.
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