Seattle Coffee Works

The second most common question in our café, next to “do your roast your own beans,” is “how should I store my coffee?”

“What’s the best way to keep coffee fresh? Can I store it in my freezer?”

Gulp.

A tough question that requires some scientific research.

First, let’s tackle what we know about freshly roasted coffee. We know coffee gives off CO2 for a few days after it’s roasted. We know that coffee left in open oxygen deteriorates more quickly than coffee protected from air.

In our café we store coffee in bags with one-way valves to let gas out and keep oxygen from getting in.

We also know our bags aren’t great for the environment, but compostable bags with one-way valves have yet to hit the market, so we stick with the bags with the best storage quality. Since this month is Earth month, we took another look at packaging. How much does that one-way valve really affect the lifespan of a cup of coffee?

Turns out, it affects coffee in a big way.

Last month we roasted our Colombia Huila Monserrate (March 30) and packaged it in six different ways. Each week after the roast, we blindly tasted each coffee, diligently trying to discern the palatable differences between them.

Over three weeks the coffee aged and each Monday we tested the six differently packaged coffees for new flavors during the aging process. Here’s what we found:

–The multi-ply bag with one-way valve scored high marks of freshness evenly throughout the three weeks. The coffee retained chocolate and sweet notes and some liveliness in its body.

The Kraft bag with no valve scored high the first week but deteriorated rapidly in the second and third weeks, developing a chalky mouthfeel and some grassy notes.

The silver tin with valve scored similarly to the bag with valve, particularly in the second week. The coffee showed a beautiful balance of caramel and nuts.

The silver tin without the valve scored a C average with decent chocolate and earth notes but became flat as it aged.

The espresso hopper showed more promise in the first week but the coffee in weeks two and three became thick and developed a toasted or char-like characteristic.

The heat-sealed multi-ply bag with valve, opened in the third week, showed the most complexity compared to the other coffees in week 3. Milk-chocolate base, earth and cinnamon.

So what did we learn? The valve seems to help the most in the final weeks of the coffee’s life.

In short:

–Keeping coffee longer than two weeks? Have it heat-sealed in a bag with a valve to make sure it retains its springy-ness in the cup.

–Drinking it sooner rather than later? Either the bag with valve OR a silver tin with valve will keep the coffee fresh and ready for enjoying. As long as it can let the gasses out and keep oxygen from getting in, the coffee should last a few weeks and keep the palate happy.

Six ways to package coffee side by side

Josh (my friend and coworker) recently told me that we shouldn’t ever have wasted espresso when we use the Anfim grinder, since it times each dose to the 1/100th of a second.

I asked him why. I have to know why I’m doing something before I do it, or in this case don’t do it. Also, I think I have a problem listening to authority figures. So when Josh told me how I was to use the grinder I’ve been using for some time, I instinctively bristled. I didn’t understand why he was stifling my creativity (what if the moment called for huge overdosing?). And he didn’t understand my resistance.

After some thought, I realized he was right. This time. We talked and hugged (something we do a lot at SCW). What I wasn’t prepared to appreciate in that moment was that he was actually helping and not stifling my creative process by trying to eliminate the variable of inconsistent dosing. He was trying to help me and every SCW barista control the outcome when we pull a shot of espresso. I realized right then that creativity and control aren’t enemies, they’re partners.

This may seem obvious to some of you. To me, it was an epiphany. Creativity provides the raw material to be controlled, and control keeps creativity from tripping over its own feet so it can achieve better results.

Another great example of this dynamic in action arrived a few days ago. The Trifecta coffee machine provides precision control of 11 variables in each cup of coffee. Overly mechanized? Maybe. Artisan? Definitely not. But we’ve been making consistently very good (by our standards) cups of coffee in it so far, and we’re still fine-tuning the variables. Soon, I believe that we’ll be able to make consistently superb cups of coffee, given enough time to learn what each variable does and how they all interact. I believe this because the variables are under constant computer control. Without that control, the ground would always be shifting under our feet a little bit.

To be sure, I wouldn’t trust an automated espresso machine to make my latte. Espresso is too fussy and I think it needs a human brain and heart to work with it and make it taste great. And in general, an excess of standardization without innovation is stifling and boring (see Sebastian’s latest post). But in my experience, pure, uncontrolled creativity often falls short of its potential. I wouldn’t have thought to nix the espresso waste from the Anfim. But now that I’ve adopted Josh’s policy, I know just how much espresso is in each dose, and my results have been a little better. I’m that much closer to serving you absolutely amazing espresso every time.

In the current New Yorker (April 5, 2010), Adam Gopnik writes about the Le Fooding phenomenon in France (Annals of Gastronomy: No Rules! The new French school of food.)

Le Fooding is meant to be a composite of Food and Feeling. Fooding-istas define themselves as folks who reject the old French school of rules; break down the distance between chefs and diners; make space for true experimentation and innovation.  Traditional French cuisine is a highly evolved yet mechanical application of skill. Chefs admired by Le Fooding fans are just as skilled but more importantly they cook with their hearts and souls. If traditional French cuisine is a highly evolved science Le Fooding leans toward art.

The article reminded me of a recent conversation in our cafe about the different French bakeries in town. A friend of the house who’s attending culinary school loves a couple of the popular bakeries – one in West Seattle the other in Ballard. I share his admiration for their skill. And, believe me, I am a sucker for one of their extra-buttery croissants. There is another bakery in town, run by a couple of Japanese descent, whose line-up includes both the traditional French pastries and more unique explorations like green-tea muffins with red beans. This bakery showcases great skill and creativity in their assortment.

I’d like to say that here at Seattle Coffee Works we’re more on the Le Fooding side of our trade. At a recent cupping, one fellow cupper remarked how free-flowing our cupping was compared to another roaster’s more traditional cupping. At that roaster there was a whole protocol around cupping; the cuppers’ experience is structured around using different sense and discovering coffees along variables such as aroma, flavor, body, acidity.

Our philosophy is that you should cup and see what happens. By and large you know a coffee is good when the adjectives describing the coffee just keep popping into your head. The good coffee doesn’t let you stop talking about it. The bland coffee will be forgotten within minutes. I know that sounds banal. Yet that’s simply back to the basics. Just like Le Fooding, we don’t need a church of food, the bible of coffee to tell us how to feel about our coffee. We should be able to experience the coffee on our own terms, informed by convention only in as much as convention is helpful in sorting out our feelings.