Which is more important, coffee shelf life or taste period? How to store purchased coffee beans correctly?

Here's the thing. A customer took advantage of the opportunity to hoard a lot of food rations before May Day. She never expected that her friend would bring her several packets of coffee beans as souvenirs after returning from a trip abroad. She couldn't finish them in a short time. So she sent a third question to Qian Street: Can coffee beans be stored in the refrigerator? Should it be refrigerated or frozen? How to make it more safe?

In order to correctly grasp the storage of coffee, we must first understand the purpose, know what the "freshness" we are pursuing, how long it is not fresh, and what factors will affect them, so as to eliminate wrong operations, so as to get the best set of "coffee lock-up plan" for you.

Enjoy the taste ~ Enjoy the taste ~ What is it?

We all know that all coffee products issued through formal channels will provide "shelf life" information, which is an operation that every manufacturer must abide by based on food labeling regulations. But for people who really drink coffee, what we are afraid of is never deterioration, but the loss of aroma. Therefore, the purpose of all storage methods is to preserve the precious aroma in coffee, that is, to extend its best taste as much as possible. Taste period.

Since fresh beans not only have rich coffee aroma, they also contain a large amount of carbon dioxide gas in the body, when the coffee beans are in the best taste period, we can actually collect information about their freshness from the brewing process even if we don't look at the baking time. Evidence.

For example, bubbles will appear when the hand is steaming, and the smooth flow of water makes it easier for us to grasp the extraction time (stale coffee will enter the water faster); if we make Italian concentrate, there will be a beautiful layer of golden yellow grease (Crema), the flow rate is also more stable, and the coffee will give off a rich and positive aroma at every stage.

On the premise of excluding external factors, over time, these essences will gradually dissipate within 40 to 50 days after roasting until they are exhausted. Therefore, if you want to extend the taste period of coffee, you must first avoid during this time. Its "natural enemies" are strong light, high temperature, moisture, oxygen, and peculiar smell.

If you want to keep the aroma of coffee, you must guard against these five "evils"

Before the packaging is opened, heat and light are the two major "culprits" that accelerate the dissipation of flavor gas molecules in coffee. Based on the principle of aroma preservation, when storing coffee, we must stay as far away as possible from the sun, heat and heat dissipation places;

When we open it, the coffee beans will come into direct contact with the air, and moisture, oxygen, and surrounding flavors will all take the opportunity to get into the packaging. It just happens that coffee is a "no-stop" character. These ingredients have always been accepted in full, so if we open the seal frequently, the beans will either get damp, accelerate oxidation, or even taste, then the coffee will naturally be greatly reduced.

Generally speaking, after fresh coffee beans are in hand, Front Street Association recommends storing them in a sealed, cool, dry, and dark place, and reducing the number of times the seal is opened during use. I believe that my witty friends have discovered that these operations are nothing more than preventive management of the above five "natural enemies", so as long as you make sure that the coffee beans are placed in a cool, ventilated and dry place without odors, you can get a longer taste period.

Can coffee beans be "preserved" through low temperatures

For other ingredients, life experience tells us that we can put them in the refrigerator for low-temperature preservation, so can coffee beans be operated in the same way?

Swiss scientist SAMO SMRKE concluded through experiments that cryopreservation can extend the exhaust speed of coffee beans by 12.5 times, which can inhibit the internal aroma from moving outward to a certain extent. Therefore, in theory, freezing can indeed "postpone" the taste period of coffee.

So for the situation of the friend mentioned at the beginning of Qianjie, if you want to keep baked cooked beans delicious and drinkable after storage for more than three to four months, freezing should be a relatively safe and effective way. However, it should be noted that even a freezing space of minus ten degrees Celsius can only delay the dissipation of the aroma and cannot completely prevent its loss. Moreover, if it is not handled properly, it will also cause the beans to leak, get damp, and get mixed with flavor and other problems, then all the efforts spent will be wasted.

Refrigerate coffee beans, what should I pay attention to?

1. For coffee storage, packaging is undoubtedly a key link. In order to keep the coffee beans completely isolated from the air in the refrigerator and the taste of other foods, Qianjie recommends bagging them first, sealing them or vacuuming them before sending them into the freezer.

2. When we take the beans out of the refrigerator, we don't rush to open them first. We wait for the vacuum bag to de-ice and warm before pouring out the coffee beans and using them. This way we can avoid the risk of getting wet by condensed water.

3. For thawed coffee beans, it is best not to put them back in the refrigerator and drink them as soon as possible, because the flavor of such coffee beans stored at low temperatures for a long time will decline faster after they return to temperature. If it is impossible to consume the entire package quickly, we can weigh the beans in single portions or in small quantities before freezing, and then make them into independent vacuum packaging, which can be opened as soon as you use it.

Whenever I see someone unable to control their desire to buy and hoard beans crazily, Qianjie will still nag bitterly: Don't buy too much, the benefits will be provided next time ~

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