Have you noticed that coffee at home never tastes as good as coffee from a professional barista at a specialty coffee shop? That is because professional baristas use freshly roasted coffee. If you want to have better tasting coffee at home, you need to buy a local, fresh coffee roast. You recognize the taste of a fresh roast immediately. Coffee is freshly roasted when it is 8-14 days past its roasting date. That is when freshly roasted coffee reaches its best or Peak Flavor. Freshly roasted coffee is hard to find. Most of the coffee from your grocery store is 120 days past its roasting date. By that time, grocery store coffee is way past its best or Peak Flavor.
Better tasting coffee at home thus depends on you being able to buy a fresh, local roast. Try a freshly roasted coffee from Peak Flavor Coffee and compare your home brew to your grocery store coffee. We guarantee that you’ll notice the difference in taste of a fresh roast versus a grocery store roast immediately. And we are pretty sure you will not return to buy a grocery store coffee again. At Peak Flavor Coffee, we start roasting when you order in small lots and guarantee that you get your freshly roasted coffee at your home within 8 days after the roast. Just in time to enjoy a delicious fresh coffee at its best or Peak Flavor. Just in time to make better tasting coffee at home.
According to research from the IRI USA Grocery Panel, finding freshly roasted coffee from your local grocery store is difficult. The IRI data indicate that coffee at your local grocery shop is on average more than 120 days old. In some cases, slow-selling, premium, specialty coffees at the grocery store are even older than that (>360 days old). With coffee this old, it is difficult or maybe even impossible to get good tasting coffee at home.
Coffee is a perishable food, which is best when it is brewed fresh, not too long after it is roasted. Just like bakery products, fruits, vegetables and other perishable foods, coffee does not get better when it gets older. Coffee perishes and loses most of its taste when it is not consumed fresh. But although we find it normal to consume fresh cookies, fresh fruits and fresh vegetables within 14 days after we buy them at the grocery store, we seem not to mind buying grocery-store coffee when it is less than fresh at 120 days past its roasting date.
When coffee brands or coffee roasters indicate the roasting date on their packs, you have an honest chance of knowing whether your coffee is fresh. If the Roasted-By-Date indicates that your coffee was roasted within the past 8-14 days, you can be sure that this coffee is fresh and will deliver best or Peak Flavor. On any day after that first 14 days post roasting, your coffee starts deteriorating in taste and flavor. That is what the Specialty Coffee Association reports in its information about fresh coffee. Any serious coffee brand or coffee roaster always lists the Roasted-By-Date to make sure you know if the coffee is fresh. Brands or Roasters, who do not list the Roasted-By-Date on their packs, offer old coffee that is past its best or Peak Flavor.
It is easy confuse the Roasted-By-Date on the back of the pack of grocery store coffee with the Best-Before-Date. While the Roasted-By-Date indicates when the coffee was roasted, so you know how many days old your coffee is, the Best-Before-Date indicates the date at which you should throw the coffee away because it has become stale or rancid.
Sources:
- IRI Grocery Panel Research on the lack of freshness of coffee in American grocery stores
