How Long Do Freshly Roasted Coffee Beans Last?
There is nothing like a cup of freshly roasted coffee to start the day. Ideally you would buy green coffee beans and roast your own coffee each day. Green coffee when properly stored retains its freshness for as long as a three years. So, this is the ideal route to take if you want the freshest coffee full of active antioxidants, aroma and flavor. But, most of us are pressed for time and find it easier to buy roasted coffee. Then the question is how long do freshly roasted coffee beans last? And how do you get the most freshly roasted coffee considering that your store bought roasted coffee may be months old?
Cooling the Beans after the Roasting Coffee
Coffee Roasters
In our Houston Coffee Roasters article a few years ago we covered the basics of why freshly roasted is best.
In search of high quality, freshly roasted healthy organic coffee? There are Houston coffee roasters from whom you can purchase a wide range of regular and organic coffees. Freshness of coffee comes down to a few facts.
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- Properly stored green coffee beans last for about two years.
- Roasting coffee brings about a number of complex chemical reactions in the coffee bean.
- Antioxidants formed in roasting coffee are responsible for its unique taste and many health benefits.
- Anti-oxidants break down with exposure to oxygen.
- Roasted beans can maintain most of their flavor for up to six months if vacuum packed.
- Once they are exposed to air but kept in a cool and dry place roasted coffee beans maintain flavor for no more than two months.
- Once you grind roasted coffee beans you expose all of the inner antioxidants to the air and you lose flavor by the hour if not the minute.
So, if you want to preserve those organic coffee antioxidants buy and store green coffee beans to roast and grind at home or, better yet, purchase small quantities of freshly roasted coffee of your choice from any of a number of Houston coffee roasters.
So, freshly roasted coffee lasts for a couple of months when stored in a cool and dry place in your home. But, how old are the green coffee beans that the roaster is using?
Too-Old Green Coffee
Years back we wrote about Brazil coffee storage.
It appears that Brazil is going to copy a practice from United States agriculture, storing excess crop production.
Coffee farmers want the best price for their crop. When there is a good growing year there is a lot of coffee and prices fall. Farmers who are able will often store part of their green coffee crop as they wait for better prices. The problem for you, the coffee consumer, is that they may wait several years before selling that coffee. We noted that green coffee can retain a reasonable amount of freshness for up to three years. There is no way that coffee stored for longer than that will be fresh!
Long storage is also a problem for the coffee roaster who must buy in bulk and then store his green coffee until he roasts and sells it.
Freshly Roasted Coffee from Colombia
We at BuyOrganicCoffee.org deal directly with coffee roasters in Colombia. When we get an order for freshly roasted coffee, that coffee is recently picked and processed. It is promptly roasted at our request and shipped air freight to the buyer. These folks do not need to worry about how long freshly roasted coffee beans last. They only need to grind their beans and make their coffee each morning.
Colombian Coffee in the Valleys and on the Mountain Sides and Even in Back Yards!
Should You Drink Coffee While Pregnant?
Many scientific studies have demonstrated that coffee is good for you. More coffee leads to less type II diabetes, for example. Drink coffee, live longer was the title of one our articles about increased longevity in coffee drinkers. But how about when you decide to have kids? Should you drink coffee while pregnant? How much is too much? Pregnant moms go through a lot. They need to give up smoking if that is their vice. And they need to avoid alcohol. Do they have to give up that morning cup of java as well? The quick answer, mom, is that you can have that morning cup of coffee but not six cups more.
Should You Drink Coffee While Pregnant? How Much Is Too Much?
The concern about drinking coffee during pregnancy comes from the possibility of stillbirth with moms who drink excessive amounts of coffee (like eight cups a day) and both low birth weight and miscarriage in women who drink too much coffee. So, how much is too much and is there an acceptable amount of caffeine during pregnancy? According to the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology up to 200 milligrams of caffeine a day are OK according to their web page entitled Is It Safe to Drink Coffee during Pregnancy?
Yes, but hold the refills. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends limiting your caffeine consumption to fewer than 200 milligrams (mg) per day. That’s about what you’d get from drinking one 10-ounce cup of Starbucks coffee.
Going over that amount could be risky. Some studies have linked drinking more than 200 mg of caffeine a day with an increased risk of miscarriage and low birth weight. And drinking large amounts of caffeine (eight cups of coffee or more a day) has been linked with stillbirth. More research needs to be done to confirm these links, but it’s a good idea to err on the side of caution when you’re pregnant.
The good doctors remind us that coffee is not the only dietary source of caffeine. Tea and soft drinks are part of the picture as well. And, if you are going to drink coffee in pregnancy stick with healthy organic coffee to avoid unwanted impurities in your cup.
Arabica versus Robusta
Coffee comes in two basic types, Arabica and Robusta. Robusta coffee beans supply the caffeine that goes into most caffeinated soft drinks and bean for bean Robusta contains about 50% more caffeine than Arabica. Arabica coffee is better tasting as well as less likely to put you over the 200 milligram limit for your daily caffeine intake during pregnancy. The amount of caffeine in an Arabica espresso is between 30 and 50 milligrams and an 8 ounce cup of black coffee house Arabica will have no more than your 200 milligram limit.
Coffee in Moderation while Pregnant
The point of this seems to be that in pregnancy as in all of life moderation is a good idea. If you are a pregnant mom. And you need your cup of java to get through the day. Drink organic, Arabica, and preferably Colombian coffee.
Colombian Arabica Organic Coffee
Do you like great organic coffee? If so, buy Colombian Arabica organic coffee. We often write about coffee from Colombia. That is because Colombia is a major coffee producer. They reliably grow commercial quantities of the best high quality Arabica coffee in the world.
Arabica Coffee
Why buy Arabica coffee? If you are looking for a pick me up, Robusta coffee beans contain more caffeine than Arabica beans. And Robusta coffee futures are sitting at around $1.10 a pound while Arabica futures are more than $2 a pound for lowest quality Arabica beans. So why buy Arabica coffee? People buy Arabica coffee because it tastes better and has a better aroma. Arabica is higher quality coffee than Robusta. Now the question is where do you get your Arabica coffee?
Brazil may produce more Arabica coffee than Colombia but if you are looking for reliably higher quality buy Colombian Arabica organic coffee.
Coffee from Manizales Colombia
Manizales is the city in the heart in the Colombian coffee growing district, the eje Cafetero. Coffee from Manizales, Colombia is an example of Colombian Arabica coffee at its finest.
Some of the best coffee in the world comes from a place where the highway signs give you a choice of heading to Bogota or Medellin.
This piece of coffee heaven is Manizales, Colombia. The main highway to neighboring Pereira is even called the coffee highway, the Careterra de Café. Coffee grows everywhere from lowlands to mountain tops. Coffee loves cloudy skies, rain and moderate temperatures making the daytime highs of 70 degrees and nighttime lows of 58 degrees perfect.
The highway connecting to the neighboring city of Pereira is even called the coffee highway, “Carretero de Café.” This is a region with volcanic soil, high altitude at which Arabica coffee grows slowly to Supremo and Excelso bean sizes. The weather is often overcast and it rains a lot. Coffee growing on slopes gets lots of water but never too much as the excess runs off. And the folks here have been growing coffee for generation after generation.
Coffee Growing Near Manizales Colombia
Organic Coffee
If you are going to drink good coffee you might as well drink healthy organic coffee.
Start the day with a hot cup of healthy organic coffee and you can receive a number of health benefits. Healthy organic coffee contains calcium. It contains antioxidants such as polyphenols which are also called condensed tannins and help prevent tooth decay in addition to their antioxidant activity. The antioxidant properties of a healthy cup of organic coffee include the ability to lessen age associated cellular damage, prevent new blood vessel formation in cancerous tissue, and inhibit the long term inflammation seen in atherosclerosis. Ongoing research points to uses of polyphenols as treatments for specific age related conditions. And all of this from a cup of healthy organic coffee!
Healthy organic coffee has been around for a long, long time. Unfortunately in the modern era the use of pesticides and herbicides has entered the picture in growing many crops, including otherwise healthy organic coffee. Although non-organic contaminants do not necessarily reduce the beneficial health effects of a healthy cup of organic coffee the non-organic contaminants cause problems of their own.
If you want good coffee, drink Arabica. If you want great coffee, look for Arabica coffee from Colombia. And if you want the best, look for Colombian Arabica organic coffee. If you want this great coffee shipped directly to you, contact us at Buy Organic Coffee.
Mice with Alzheimer’s Should Not Drink Coffee
We have reported numerous health benefits from drinking coffee. Included in our reports was one entitled Forget Your Alzheimer’s and Drink Your Coffee.
Research carried out at the University of South Florida implies that it may be time to forget your Alzheimer’s and drink your coffee. Alzheimer’s disease is the condition seen often in old age in which a person is unable to remember recent events. It is also the stuff of jokes about every time a person in mid-life or older forgets something.
The scientists at South Florida studied a strain of mice that has been bred to get Alzheimer’s disease, or at least the mouse variety. These critters develop high levels of beta amyloid in their brain and then the plaques inhibit nerve transmission. These are the same findings that researchers see in humans. Because mice live shorter lives than humans, old age comes sooner. Thus scientists can see sooner if whatever they have been doing to the mice has had an effect. Now these folks have been having their little research subjects drink coffee.
Results
The result of that study was this.
Coffee is a natural for this purpose. Caffeine and something else in coffee reliably reduce beta amyloid levels in the brain of mice.
That is to say the damaging plaques that seem to lead to the Alzheimer’s equivalent in mice are reduced by drinking coffee.
So, if drinking coffee is likely to reduce the precursors of Alzheimer’s we should drink coffee. Right?
But, now researchers have studied mice that already have the mouse equivalent of Alzheimer’s. And they have found that consuming the equivalent of what would be 5 cups of coffee a day worsens symptoms in the rodents.
And, if grandpa already has Alzheimer’s he should not drink coffee. Right?
Applying Mouse Research to Humans
Is it a valid assumption that what applies to mice will apply to humans as well? To make sense of this we looked online at an article in Science: How Things Work.
The mouse’s DNA looks startlingly like ours; in fact, we share more than 90 percent of the same genes as a mouse.
But dogs and pigs are more closely related to us. But people are uncomfortable sacrificing large numbers of these animals in the name of science.
Mice might not be the closest animals to us genetically, but they are one of the closest that we feel comfortable using in studies.
And mice mature faster so that researchers can test various treatments and get results in a year or two instead of waiting a dozen or more years in other animals of six to eight decades in humans.
As a practical matter mice are easier to study and the studies produce quicker results. But, there is not a one to one correlation between people and rodents. Thus, it might provide useful insight to look at how mice with Alzheimer’s react to coffee but a more reliable way to test this is to give Grandpa a cup of coffee or two and see how he does. In the case of drinking coffee the results are virtually immediate so the mice do not give us anything useful in terms of an early result.
Organic Coffee: No Caffeine
There is really only one organic coffee without caffeine and that is made using the Swiss Water method. People have been removing caffeine from coffee for decades. The earliest methods are still used these are the direct and indirect solvent methods. They get the caffeine out of the coffee but are not organic methods.
Indirect Solvent Method
Coffee beans are soaked for several hours in hot water just below the boiling point. This removes caffeine but also other chemicals that give coffee its flavor and aroma.
Then the water is drawn off to another container and where a solvent is added. The solvent binds to the caffeine. Then the mixture is re-heated the caffeine and volatile solvent combination evaporates. When the beans are added to the remaining mixture, they reabsorb the remaining chemicals and regain some of the coffee flavor.
Direct Solvent Method
In the direct solvent method coffee beans are steamed for about half an hour. For the next ten hours they are repeatedly rinsed with the solvent. Finally, the solvent is drained off and the beans are steamed one las time.
Neither of these methods qualifies as organic.
CO2 Method
This is a non-solvent means of decaffeinating coffee. It works for very large batches and is used for regular coffee in a huge scale. The problem is that the process is very expensive and is only economical when used on a large scale.
Coffee beans are put under pressure of 1,000 pounds per square inch with liquid carbon dioxide in a stainless steel tank. The CO2 dissolves the caffeine and leaves the other coffee constituents alone. When the CO2 is removed from the tank it passes briefly though a gas phase when it loses its caffeine and can be used again.
This process qualifies as organic but is too expensive to use except for huge batches of regular coffee.
Swiss Water Method
This is an organic method to decaffeinate coffee and is certified as such. It is also applicable to reasonable batch sizes making it appropriate for organic coffee.
This means of decaffeination was discovered 80 years ago but has only be in use for about 30 as it required adjustments to make it cost effective.
Caffeine is removed from coffee beans with hot water. The hot water is passed through a large pore activated charcoal filter which traps the caffeine but allows smaller antioxidant and other molecules to pass through.
Then new beans are soaked with the caffeine poor but antioxidant rich water. Via osmosis caffeine leaves the beans while antioxidants remain. This process provides a coffee that is 99.95% caffeine free and is certified as such. Swiss Water decaf is labeled as such and is the only commercially available organic coffee without caffeine.
Unfortunately, there is no good way to decaffeinate coffee at home so you cannot purchase your favorite coffee and then remove the caffeine. But you can buy Arabica coffee which is lower in caffeine than Robusta and you can buy organic coffee from Colombia.
What Is Honest Organic Coffee?
There is a new name on the bottled cold brewed coffee scene. The largest seller of soft drinks and other non-alcoholic beverage in the world, Coca Cola, is marketing a product called Honest Organic Coffee. If you are interested in bottled cold brewed coffee to go this might be a good choice.
A refreshing summer drink is cold brewed coffee. Cold brewed coffee is about two thirds less acidic than espresso or percolator coffee. It has to do with extracting caffeine and healthy antioxidants but less acid using a slow, cool extraction process. Basically the coffee just diffuses out of the ground beans over a few hours. And now, if you do not want to spend the time making your own cold brew coffee, you can buy bottled cold brew coffee and store it in your frig!
But, it turns out that while Honest Organic Coffee is really organic it is coffee that has been brewed, canned and cooled. It is not necessarily cold brewed coffee. Nevertheless, the organic part addresses one of our concerns about bottled or canned coffee.
Bottled cold brew coffee sounds interesting but if you like the idea of healthy organic coffee is the cold brewed bottled coffee organic? And how to the organic coffee antioxidants preserve in a bottle?
Coca Cola is launching the Honest Organic Coffee brand in Great Britain with not just plain coffee but bottled coffee house coffee as well. The trade publication Packaging News reports on Coca Cola’s launch of cold coffee drinks.
Launching in March, there will be two great tasting variants in the organic Honest Coffee range – Latte and Mocha. The product range will tap into the growing consumer demand for RTD coffee products in GB, a sector which is worth £66m and growing by 20% year on year.
The coffee drinks will be available in a re-sealable 240ml single PET, designed to suit consumers with an on-the-go lifestyle – with workplace and higher education among the key channels for the product. Made with Arabica beans, the products are organic and exempt from the soft drinks tax that comes into effect in April. The 42.5% coffee content and lower sugar delivers a taste profile that is less sweet than some RTD coffee options, appealing to consumers who want a more authentic cold coffee experience.
The appeal of cold coffee is that you can simply go to your refrigerator and take out a can or bottle instead of having to go to the coffee shop and stand in line or wait in your car for drive up service. And, of course, there are no issues with hot coffee burns for which Starbucks had to pay a customer.
And when buying coffee house coffee you should also be aware of how hot it might be and if the lid is on tight when you buy for takeout.
A Florida woman who was severely burned after the lid popped off a cup of Starbucks coffee and spilled on her lap was awarded $100,000 for her injuries Thursday.
A Starbucks representative testified during the trial that the coffee company receives 80 complaints a month about issues with lids popping off or leaking.
In our article how, How Hot Is Starbucks Coffee, we cited expert opinion about hot coffee and burns. The Burn Foundation discusses hot liquid burns.
When tap water reaches 140º F, it can cause a third degree (full thickness) burn in just five seconds.
Hot Water Causes Third Degree Burns
in 1 second at 156º
in 2 seconds at 149º
in 5 seconds at 140º
in 15 seconds at 133ºHow hot is Starbucks coffee? If the lady actually suffered 3rd degree burns the coffee was probably at least 140 degrees and more likely 150 or above.
That is the argument for products like Honest Organic Coffee instead of takeout at Starbucks or McDonalds.
Organic Coffee for Sale
Where can you find organic coffee for sale and how can you know that it is high quality and fresh? The best organic coffee comes from places like Colombia. Arabica coffee is the gold standard for quality but you also want fresh beans and not ones that were in storage for years. And to make sure that your Arabica coffee is organic look for proof of organic coffee certification on the bag.
Organic coffee differs from regular coffee in several aspects. The soil in which organic coffee is grown must have been verified as free from prohibited substances for at least three years. In addition there must be distinct boundaries between land on which organic coffee is grown and land where pesticides, herbicides, and prohibited chemical fertilizers are used. This guarantees that drift of substances sprayed or otherwise applied on adjacent land will not contaminate the organic plot of land. Organic coffee certification includes the adherence to a specific and verifiable plan for all practices and procedures from planting to crop maintenance, to harvest, de-husking, bagging, transport, roasting, packaging, and final transport. Along the way procedures must be in place at every step to insure that there is no contamination of the healthy organic coffee produced in pristine soil with regular coffee produced on soil exposed to herbicides, pesticides, and organic fertilizers.
There are many great coffees grown by organic methods but your only proof of organic content is the USDA, UTZ or Rainforest Alliance seal on the bag. That means someone visited the coffee farm and checked to make sure the farmer was following set guidelines.
Old versus Fresh
A few years ago coffee farmers in Brazil put coffee beans into storage rather than sell them because prices were so low. Then, after a few years, coffee prices went up and coffee farmers sold every bean that they had. Unfortunately, a lot of that old coffee was only good for sale to institutional buyers. In our recent article about organic coffee with the most antioxidants we wrote about the importance of coffee freshness.
And, before that, we wrote about how to get freshly roasted Colombian coffee.
Buy Organic Coffee to the Rescue
If you would like coffee that was just picked and processed and has been roasted within the last week or so contact us at BuyOrganicCoffee.org. We work with coffee roasters in places like Manizales or Chinchina in the heart of the Eje Cafetero. Order your coffee and we will have our partners select the freshest coffee beans, roast them to perfection, and send to your via express air delivery. That is how you can get freshly roasted Colombian coffee.
If you want the best organic coffee for sale, send us a message at BuyOrganicCoffee.org. We will be pleased to find the best organic coffee for sale in Colombia where they grow the best coffee. And then we will arrange to have that great organic or otherwise great Colombian coffee sent directly to you whether you are interested in green coffee beans or recently roasted.
Organic Coffee with the Most Antioxidants
We have written time and again about the health benefits of coffee and how regular and organic coffee antioxidants are central to these benefits. We have also noted that by drinking organic coffee you can avoid the many impurities too often found in regular coffee. So, organic coffee is a better choice than regular coffee but which is the organic coffee with the most antioxidants? Here are the facts about how to get the organic coffee with the most antioxidants in your cup.
Robusta versus Arabica
Robusta coffee beans not only have much more caffeine than higher quality and better tasting Arabica but green Robusta coffee beans also have double the antioxidants. Years ago the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry published an article comparing antioxidant activity in coffee, tea, and cocoa.
Green coffee beans of Robusta coffee exhibited a 2-fold higher antioxidant activity than Arabica coffee, but after roasting this difference was no longer significant.
So Robusta starts out with more antioxidants but they do not survive roasting.
Roasting
Health.com writes about antioxidants and light versus dark roast.
For the new study, published in the Journal of Medicinal Food, Korean researchers compared coffees of several different roasting levels, analyzing their caffeine content and levels of chlorogenic acid, a well-known antioxidant. They also exposed extract of each coffee to human cell cultures to test their antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.
The results? The lighter the roast, the higher the chlorogenic acid content-and the better the coffee extract protected human cells against oxidation (cell damage) and inflammation when tested in the lab. Caffeine levels, on the other hand, did not vary significantly between samples.
This seems to make sense given the fact that the excess antioxidant levels in Robusta go away when the beans are roasted. So, excessive roasting will also reduce the level of chlorogenic acid antioxidants in coffee. However, there are also antioxidants that are produced in roasting. The so-called “Maillard reaction” produces new antioxidants when green coffee beans are browned. Your goal, if you want organic coffee with the most antioxidants, is to roast your organic coffee but not excessively.
Time and Ground Coffee Are Your Enemies
When antioxidants in coffee are exposed to air they oxidize! Because grinding coffee exposes more coffee surface area to the air ground coffee loses its flavor and its antioxidants faster than roasted whole bean coffee. Years ago we offers some tips about how to store coffee and preserve freshness.
It is because coffee starts to lose its flavor (and antioxidants) as soon as the roasting process is completed. Thus roasting takes place close to the market where coffee will be sold. You will want to store coffee and preserve freshness but you will also want to purchase small quantities of coffee, enjoy our coffee, and buy more when you run out. Coffee is not a fine wine. It does not improve with age.
If you purchase a large quantity of wholesale coffee put the larger amount in an air tight container and take your daily coffee out of a smaller container, replenishing as needed. Small and airtight containers can be store in the freezer but only until the first use. The same rules apply for regular coffee and healthy organic coffee. Coffee ages and it ages more if it is warm, wet, and exposed to the air.
It turns out that the most important factor if you want organic coffee with the most antioxidants, you need to buy new and not old beans, store properly, and grind just before making your coffee.
How Can You Get Freshly Roasted Colombian Coffee?
The best coffee is Arabica and the best Arabica coffee comes from Colombia.
There are two basic species of coffee, Arabica and Robusta. Arabica coffee is generally believed to be the first type of coffee to be cultivated. When you buy Arabica organic coffee you are choosing the species of coffee with superior taste according to many experts. Café Arabica also contains less caffeine than Robusta. Although wild Arabica coffee plants can reach 12 meters in height coffee growers typically prune the plant to no more than 5 meters and often as short as 2 meters high to make the coffee easier to pick. Arabica coffee grows best at just under a mile in altitude although it is grown at sea level and as high as 7,500 feet.
The Colombian coffee growing region known as the Eje Cafetero has ideal soil and climate for growing coffee and the coffee farmers in the region have been growing high quality Arabica coffees for a century and a half. So, if you want great Arabica coffee, look for coffee from Colombia.
Juan Valdez
If you want to make sure the coffee you buy at the market is Colombian look for Juan Valdez. Juan Valdez is a fictional character invented by the Colombian Coffee Growers Association. When you see Juan of the label you can be assured that the coffee is 100% Colombian. But how can you be assured that the coffee is fresh?
Coffee Freshness: Green Coffee
The coffee that you buy has been dried, had the fruit of the coffee berry removed and has been threshed to remove the outer husk of the bean. At that point the green coffee beans are at their freshest and when properly stored and transported green coffee retains a reasonable degree of freshness for up to two years. Coffee house coffee is made from freshly roasted green coffee beans. But, how old are the green beans? If the coffee house got a great deal on old beans they are making a better profit and you are drinking inferior coffee!
Coffee Freshness: Roasted Coffee
There is an art to roasting coffee. When we visited the roaster at Tilladora Manizales last year the roaster explained that perhaps one out of five batches that he roasts ends up being sold to institutions instead of high end buyers. And the freshness of roasted coffee lasts for up to six months when properly stored. Most of us do not have the skill, time, or interest to roast our own coffee. And we do not know how long ago the coffee that we are buying was roasted. So, how can you get fresh and freshly roasted Colombian coffee if you do not live in the Eje Cafetero?
Buy Organic Coffee to the Rescue
If you would like coffee that was just picked and processed and has been roasted within the last week or so contact us at BuyOrganicCoffee.org. We work with coffee roasters in places like Manizales or Chinchina in the heart of the Eje Cafetero. Order your coffee and we will have our partners select the freshest coffee beans, roast them to perfection, and send to your via express air delivery. That is how you can get freshly roasted Colombian coffee.