As fresh as it gets! (The thing they don’t tell you…)
A funny thing happened on the way home from the factory today. My first “poppage.” Just how fresh is “too fresh?” Have you ever heard of the guy who thought he’d been shot in the back of the head, only to discover that a tin of biscuit dough he’d just purchased at the grocers had exploded in the back seat of his car and plastered itself to his scalp? (He reached back to touch his head and thought his brains were falling out!) Well, very similar experience, only I was showered with coffee grounds! Though my brains weren’t falling out, I certainly put them to task trying to figure out what the heck had just happened.
I recently had what I thought was a stroke of genius, and had cut down some larger bags to accommodate sample size pouches for potential customers (until the sample pouches I had on order arrived). I didn’t bother with using the valved bags, as coffee grounds aren’t supposed* to de-gas as much as the beans, though they do continue to de-gas (I often remind our coffee customers that, unlike other food products such as biscuit dough, if it’s bulging, it’s simply an indicator of freshness). But it appears that perhaps we were bagging coffee that is “too fresh?” Oh my God! Is there such a thing? Apparently so.
The little 2oz pouches had swollen up to resemble those little souvenir footballs that cheerleaders toss to the crowds at football games. I had brought a couple home with me and planned to use a tiny sharp object to puncture the bag and release the gases. Rupert had told me he’d never seen one explode, though he had seen many that looked on the verge. Well, please advise our Master Roaster that I have one up on him! The best part of this experience is that my car, though riddled with coffee grounds, smells better than any coffee shop I’ve ever visited, due to the lingering aroma of freshly roasted Columbian Supremo remnants that will likely continue showing up for months to come.
Our motto is “It doesn’t get much fresher than this!” Well folks, I’m here to tell ya, our roasted coffee is fresh. Wanna vacuum my car? I’ll send you a free sample, complete with safety pin.
Actually I always found that for a MUCH shorter period after grinding, fresh coffee gives off MUCH more volatile oil than beans. More of the precious pores holding the tasty stuff are broken open. So, to get the best taste possible, always grind right before you brew where possible you good people….