Is your coffee too fresh?

Is your coffee too fresh?

Is your coffee too fresh?

Summary:

In order to get the best taste of fresh coffee beans, you need to balance two important factors: preventing the loss of aroma and increasing carbon dioxide content. For most coffee, such upgrades can create opportunities 4-14 days after roasting.

As we all know, in order to drink good coffee, coffee beans must be fresh and high quality. More importantly, how do you call out the most delicious taste of your favorite coffee?

You may have noticed that the definition of fresh coffee is sometimes quite different, depending on who you ask the question. This is because fresh is always an acronym used by baristas to describe the taste of coffee, and baristas generally say it is fresh when they think it tastes best. In order to better understand the freshness and taste, it is necessary to grasp the composition of the taste of coffee.

Of course, the different quality of coffee is caused by the environment and process of growing, but the most important thing is that it depends on roasting. If you have a chance to smell raw beans, you will think of a cup of fresh tea full of vitality that you have drunk. The warm and beautiful aroma brought by opening the bag is about to be baked by coffee craftsmen.

However, roasting is also the culprit behind the destruction of coffee aroma, the whole roasting process, coffee beans will lose their original weight and structure becomes loose, when the aroma is easy to disperse. This makes it easier for the aroma to enter our nasal passages and allows us to enjoy the aroma. But soon the aroma will evaporate.

But in order to pursue the best flavor, it is not just the aroma of coffee that needs to be considered. Intense heat destroys the sugars and amino acids of coffee beans and turns them into carbon dioxide. In the first few days, the increase in carbon dioxide will greatly affect the extraction, it can be said that it is difficult to extract the delicious taste. So coffee takes time to grow beans, which makes brewing much easier. "Coffee evolved every day in the first few days, and it is very active in terms of carbon dioxide. I think it's not an aging process but a calm process, "Professor Yerezian said.

In order to help coffee lovers get the best taste, it is necessary to balance the degassing of carbon dioxide and prevent the loss of aroma. For deep-roasted coffee beans, this process often occurs in the first few days after baking. For lightly roasted coffee, it's best to wait a little longer, such as 5-10 days. This is because deep-roasted coffee has a looser texture than light-roasted coffee after roasting.

Source: Boot Camp Coffee

Another important factor is to consider whether you will enjoy your coffee. For common extraction techniques such as hand flushing and pour over, you can use your favorite coffee earlier; for concentration, you need to give the coffee time to grow beans to improve its aroma.

* factors to consider: deep-roasted coffee will have grease on the surface. This layer of oil will accelerate the oxidation of coffee and make it rotten, which is a good reason not to deep-bake your favorite coffee beans.

Greater Goods presents their coffee.

We asked Trey Cobb, founder and chief baker of Greater Goods, about what he thought was the freshest and best flavor of coffee, and he said:

"our coffee is roasted in a low-oxygen environment, and the bags we use are nitrogen-free and have less than 1% oxygen content, and release CO2 when the coffee is degassed. We keep testing cups: they are also coffee baked in low oxygen, one is 90 days after baking and the other is only one day after baking. According to the standard of SCAA, it is found that the variable increment is not significant. The aroma, flavor, acidity and sweetness are preserved.

However, if they are placed in an environment with an oxygen content of more than 2%, the aroma and flavor will be significantly damaged. In addition, if they are placed in a normal environment (the amount of oxygen is 20-21%), the two will suffer particularly serious losses.

For coffee that is used to make concentrated coffee, we recommend that it be used at least 5 days after baking. Our internal standard is to use it after 7-11 days. It is most suitable for cold brew,10-14 days. The "sweetness" of coffee varies according to the degree of roasting (deep or light), bean density, physical size, processing methods and even varieties. "

Sterling Roasters and their coffee

Aric Miller also commented on this. "the idea of fresh coffee is an erratic term," he said. In this industry, we know that very fresh coffee is not good. Coffee needs a break to release potential CO2.

CO2 is converted to carbonic acid, which, once fully formed, makes the coffee astringent. So how long should it take us to grow beans? How long is the shelf life of light-roasted coffee? I did an experiment without the help of any special equipment.

During the test, I used coffee of different ages from one day to a year and a half. The test was carried out by groping. The results were surprising and led me to consider the definition of coffee with the best flavor. As expected, coffee is the most delicious when used in 7-21 days. But surprisingly, coffee for one month, two months or even more tastes good, and three months is okay.

Oh, my God, half a year is pretty good. Less than a year and a half of coffee is not even aging coffee. I think we really need to reassess the lifespan of coffee. The coffee we use to make espresso has been in place for 27 days, but the taste is still quite remarkable. It's different, but it can. But 28 days is really a little bad, use your head and think about why.

I have been learning and trying to forget some of the coffee knowledge I understand. These contents are changing all the time, and we should be open to it.