...But When Was It Roasted? Article by Dave Earnest, Founder, Cobblestone Coffee / CobblestoneCoffee.com. There are three major categories that have an influence on the quality of the enjoyment of your brewed coffee. Three major objectives as they relate to freshness, or as I like to say, the three major freshes. The are: The freshness of the roast of your beans, the freshness of the grind of those beans before you brew, and the freshness of the brew of your beverage before you sip. The closer you get to the perfection in the freshness in all three of these categories, then the closer you will be to experiencing nirvana in your cup. Just roasted, just ground, just brewed coffee is what we all should strive for, and it's these qualities that make the difference between so so, ho hum coffee, and the sweet and glorious extraction of the gods! (cue music and heavenly beam of sunlight) We here at Cobblestone are here to fight against the "good enough" mentality of coffee drinkers out there, to prove to you that there is much better and easily obtainable coffee than "good enough". You know, a Yugo  is "good enough" transportation, why would anyone want a vehicle that is more expensive, when a Yugo is "good enough?" When you have driven and experienced a fine luxury automobile, and then have to sit back in to that economy vehicle, you'll notice the difference that quality makes. The same applies with top of the line coffees, except you will not have to pay the difference between an economy car and a luxury vehicle to be able to enjoy great coffee at home. Part of the service that we provide to our customers, in addition to providing you with top of the line, hand crafted coffees (by yours truly), is informing you of what to look for on the market (should you choose to look elsewhere) and what we all can do at home to enhance the quality and enjoyment of the coffee you have purchased. This article focuses on purchasing freshly roasted coffee. What's the big deal? First things first, a fine coffee experience starts with a high quality coffee bean. All coffee beans are NOT created equal. There are high quality coffee beans and very low quality coffees beans grown on the planet that are available to the roasters. If your roaster is not selecting the highest quality coffees for you, then you are screwed from the beginning when they say hello to you. But let's assume that we have a quality bean AND, let's assume that is was expertly roasted. Two assumptions we will use as a given for sake of our discussion. The first of my three 'Fresh' objectives mentioned above is in the proximity of brewing your coffee as close to the date that the beans were actually roasted. As close as you can get the brewing of your coffee to the day after the day your coffee was roasted, the higher the quality of your beverage will be. Keep in mind that the "Magic Window" in fresh roasted coffee is in the first two weeks of it having been roasted, and that is no matter HOW the coffee is packaged. The first two weeks is the critical timeframe, after that, it's all down hill, and you start heading for "good enough". Even within that two week window, the closer you get to the day after roasting, the more developed and full bodied your coffee will be. Now that we know this, let's take a walk through the coffee aisle at your local supermarket. Stroll along with me, can you hear the elevator music? We all love to walk through here, it smells fantastic doesn't it? Watch out for those grounds on the floor down there, they haven't cleaned that up in a while… clean up here on ailse three, Joey.  Ahh, the aromas. Wait a second… stop the music. We smell coffee in the coffee aisle, right? As a matter of fact, it smells like flavored coffee...  Coffee doesn't release aromas unless it is exposed to the air, which means that there is coffee present that is not sealed up and protected from the oxygen.  This is because of the bulk coffee in the dispensers is sitting there airing out all of it's qualities.  Yep, it's sitting in there waiting, staling away, and the freshest of that coffee is on the top of the chute, not at the bottom, from which the next person will be drawing from.  They will be drawing out the stalest coffee in the chute… and exactly how long has it been sitting in there exposed to the air anyway?  And… how long ago was it roasted before it even made it to this store to sit and stale away in this bin? (A side note, what's the easiest way to hide stale coffee? Flavor it. Yep, slap a flavor oil on the stale coffee and there you go, good as new... but I digress.) Alright, well let's put aside the bulk stale coffees and look at the packaged coffee on the shelf while we enjoy those aromas. So many choices, and they all say 'Gourmet'. …so they all have to be good then, right? Remember, it all starts with a high quality bean. Beware of generic descriptions, such as "Colombian Blend" or "Gourmet Blend" or etcetera, and look for specifics. (from a previous article, you all know how I feel about a "French Roast" blend) Look for specifics such as "Mexican High Grown, from Chiapas" or "Java Estate Kimel-A" or etc. These are specific coffees from specific farms in specific countries. If the label does not speak in specifics, then that means that they can not BE specific about what is in that package. Look at the Kona "Blends" that you will see out there, versus 100% Pure Kona coffee. Lot's of "Hawaiian Blends" out there. What does that mean? By FDA rules it only has to be 10% coffee that comes from somewhere in Hawaii, and the rest is filler. …and they are asking how much for that? Beware of those blends, read the small print, and remember, what is not written on the label is just as revealing as what is. My favorite label that I have found once read "Imported!!" Yeah, no joke Sherlock, all coffees are imported in to the States, with the exception of Hawaiian coffees, the only beans grown in American soil. Another one reads "100% Arabica Beans!!"  Well I hope so! Again, no joke Sherlock, all specialty grade coffees are from Arabica beans. All of them. It's funny what you'll find on a label to make a product 'sound' more valuable than it really is… I suppose that is why those Marketing suits at 'Corporate' make so much money… but I digress yet again… Ok, so let's assume we have a specific high end coffee in front of us and everything looks legitimate.  …but when was it roasted? My analogy here for fresh roasted coffee is of freshly baked bread, fresh out of the oven. In most every case that I have personally experienced, bread is at it's best when it is fresh out of the oven, still warm and steaming. Awesome. I could go for some right now! Coffee is no different. Your brew will be at it's best, the closer you get to the date it was roasted. But after your coffee has been roasted, as time goes by, the quality of the extraction will diminish. Anyone for day old coffee? How about month old coffee? You get the point here. It takes guts to put a "roasted on" date on your packaging. We put it on ours, because we want you to know precisely when your coffee was roasted. That's our niche, that's what you are paying for when you buy coffee from us. We don't roast coffee until someone has actually ordered it or we think it will find a home within that day. Why isn't everyone else out there putting their roasted on dates on their labels? Why? My guess is because they don't want you to know when that coffee was roasted. They can't tell you because it takes too long for their product to get through the supply chain to the shelf at your local store. Their coffee is just plain too old, it's outside of the magic window. They keep touting that their coffee is the best ever, but they don't reveal how long ago the coffee is roasted knowing full well that proximity to the roasting date is crucial for the best possible experience of their product. The next quality to look for... is the packaging itself. Seek out packaging that has a means of allowing the freshly roasted coffees to "de-gas". All coffees release CO2 after having just been roasted. It's science. It's nature. It happens, and you can't stop it. Coffee placed and sealed in packing after having just been roasted, will fill the package with CO2, to the point of "pillowing" the packaging, and will eventually lead to a burst at the seals due to the pressure built up inside being stronger than the packaging can handle. A true sign of a freshly roasted, freshly packaged coffee by a roaster that cares about your enjoyment, is the presence of a "one way valve" located somewhere on the packaging. This is a circular impression on the outside of the bag, with a small hole visible in the center. On the inside of the bag is the valve, that allows built up pressure to release while not allowing any oxygen back inside of the package while it is still sealed. A package with this valve is a sure sign that the roaster is concerned about the product enough to package it while it is still degassing (it's still fresh), and has provided a means for it to do so without a failure in the packaging. These valves are expensive, but essential to providing a high quality product. The only way to package coffee in flexible packaging without a valve, is to allow it to de-gas first before being packaged. Degassing is otherwise known as staling. Big corporate coffee practices the art of staling it's coffee before it is even packaged, to avoid having to purchase the valves. They call it fresh roasted on the label, but I called it freshly staled as well. Funny, they don't write that on the label some reason… Fresh roasted coffee releases gas. If you've got gas, you need a valve. If there's no valve, then there's no gas, and if there is no gas, then the coffee is stale. Next time you are perusing the coffee aisle, look for the packaging with the one way valves. More specifically, look for the packaging without the valves, and take a look at who they are. Which ones of those labels are from publically held companies? Yep, I thought so. Big corporate, bottom line driven coffee. It's an enlightening experience. There you go folks, a few qualities to look for while you are looking for coffee: a high quality bean or blend, having just been (expertly) roasted. Future articles will discuss why it's important to grind just before you brew, and why you should sip just after you brew. Happy Sipping! Comments? Dave can be contacted via email at dave@cobblestonecoffee.com. (c) Copyright Cobblestone Coffee. Reproduction by written permission only.