markmark1 wrote:How about: Green beans vac packed and deep frozen?

Many years...

Good,cheap,fast. Pick two.
Espresso=fast

If one live in a dry climate green beans are certainly stable for years. If one live in humid climates nothing seems to last for long! I found some well sealed beans that were in a glass jar that had been misplaced for about five years. There were still excellent. However, I now live in an area with dry air most of the time. Coffee beans are extremely toxic to most insects, so there usually are not insect problems. When they get wet, however, it is a different story. However, I normally try to avoid having a given batch of coffee consumed in less than a year as a general rule of thumb. If I still lived in the islands I would always plan on getting them used in a very few months. Humidity is the really important thing.

I often have problems freezing things because water vapour gets into the containers and condenses frost. Things in freezers often seem to pick up mysterious bad flavours. When you take the things out they tend to become wet if they have frost on them. VERY tight seals are necessary for freezing things like coffee beans.

You can figure out just how fast you use coffee. Do NOT store the beans in plastic bags. Put them in tight glass jars no matter what temperature. If you make 3 shots a day that is going to consume about 60 grams of green coffee per day.

rpavlis wrote:If one live in a dry climate green beans are certainly stable for years...

I've never had a single green coffee taste as good at 5-6 months old as it did fresh. Short of vacuum sealing and deep freezing, green coffee will degrade in quality, well within a year.

rpavlis wrote:If one live in a dry climate green beans are certainly stable for years. If one live in humid climates nothing seems to last for long! I found some well sealed beans that were in a glass jar that had been misplaced for about five years. There were still excellent.

Wrong again. Ideal green coffee storage is ~60% relative humidity. Too much humidity certainly is not good but neither is too little. To an extent I suppose 5 year stored in a jar greens still being excellent is dependent on the acuteness of the taster but IMO and that of one the top world class coffee cuppers no. Over a decade ago (2001-2004) I did a 4 crop cycle storage test (using Costa Rica La Minita) with sample from each new crop vac' sealed and stored at room temperature. Vac' sealing maintained proper bean moisture level and eliminated chance of odor contamination. What about how they tasted? Come 4th crop cycle all four were identically roasted. I sent samples to Tom Owens (Sweet Marias/Coffee Shrub and often sought after coffee cupping jurist for competitions, COEs etc.) The surprising result was while the new crop was easily identified the 1 year stored was actually better over all than the new crop because the new crop was an inferior season than than previous year. The 2 year stored was fading substantially and lacked virtually any sparkle with hints of bagginess and 3 year stored definitely tasted "baggy". While the vac' sealed at room temperature greens all were better than anticipated for the number of years stored it was clear vac' sealing to maintain moisture level was not enough. Interestingly since these were hermetically sealed not in burlap demonstrated that the baggy taste of old coffee was not actually taste transfer from burlap bags!

I still vehemently disagree. To each his own!

Besides there being a wide range of an individual abilities to taste (fact different people have different number of taste buds) which affects ability to differentiate tastes I failed to mention an equally or possibly even more important factor: roast level. Generally speaking the darker the roast the less important the quality of the bean from the beginning and the taste differences between current or old crop greens would be significantly reduced. And the further into 2nd crack the less green age matters.

Dont worry about it. Life is short, eat good food and drink good coffee.

Sure, home roast but not to save money because you wont. Roaster 1, then roaster 2, then roaster 3, computer, thermocouples, data logger, electric, gas, greens, 8 yeas later you have gone through $8000 in equipment to save $5 a pound on coffee.

I buy 5 pound bags of roasted coffee and then divvy it up into mason jars to freeze. I save a lot of money this way since I am only paying shipping once and the coffee doesn't degrade in my chest freezer from what I can tell.

Yeah I order 5lbs and break down and freeze. Ordering 12oz bags constantly would annoy the heck out of me lol