I am wondering how long some have kept greens until they noticed issues. I have a few lingering pounds that are approaching the 1 year from purchase (SM's) mark. I know greens technically can last several years and there are even some who advocate aging of beans, but I am a little concerned that I will begin to notice a decline in quality soon if I don't roast them. I haven't had any noticeable problems to date. I have stored them is dark and cool areas in cotton bags. So, how long is too long? Also, should I switch containers to avoid "baggy" flavors?

A year is no problem in my opinion.

Green beans will age over time. Some people like the way the flavor changes and others do not.

I have some beans about 15 years old right now sitting down in my cellar.

Thanks Adrian. Another passion of mine is wine and I can appreciate the bell curve of quality that aging brings to that passion. Just not sure of the shape of the curve for beans. I will have to follow the only trustworthy guide I have...my palate. I am just worried that I will hold beans too long and allow them to go to waste.

If you think you are going to store green beans for more then a few months I recommend purchase of a foodsaver vacuum storage unit. Excess beans stored in bags under vacuum will keep better. You can put them in a wine cabinet, refrigerator or room temperature. As you live in hot and humid florida I would highly recommend this method. The foodsaver works great on food too and will pay for itself over time.

GC7 wrote:The foodsaver works great on food too

Oh, yeah, huh!

dialydose wrote:I am just worried that I will hold beans too long and allow them to go to waste.

The idea of vacuum packing is a good one. Small commercial affairs like Sweet Maria's are doing it, and they have reported good results.

I don't know what to think. I can only say I have had these twenty pound bags lying open for more than a year and I haven't noticed the coffee going bad or anything.

As I said I do notice a change in the coffee after a couple of years, but I would not describe it as going bad or stale, just a change to something very different, and to my palate interesting.

Then again my palate may not be the most sensitive.

Adrian - you live in gentle San Francisco - that coddles your beans

Howard

I hung on to my stash of Maui Mocha for about four years after the plantation got turned into condominiums, and the original Yemen rootstock got torn out. I was so attached to the chocolate flavor of the regular crop that I kept roasting these zombie beans for about a year after even the faded memory of the chocolate had disappeared.

Call it a bizarre mourning rite.

I've been using a Foodsaver vacuum system for four years now, and the results have been very satisfactory (for me). I still have some greens that I vac-sealed four years ago, and have yet to be disappointed after roasting older vac'd beans. In fact, I had some Lintong from years ago that I believe Jim had given high marks on Coffee Cuppers. The last pound of it, roasted about 2-3 years after purchase (sorry, my memory is faint on the exact age of the beans) was fantastic. I can do some more digging to figure out how old they were, and where I got them from, but the point is that they were excellent. Did vac-sealing help there? My guess is yes, but I have nothing to back that with.

An earlier poster is right that Tom at SM has had some vac-sealed coffees recently (and still may). My recollection there is that they were sealed at the estate - or close by - right after processing. I think the beans were Kenyan. Tom sure seems to think this makes a difference.

My issue is temperature. I keep my 100+ lbs stash in a dark tile-lined closet that stays cooler than the house, but still can get to 75 degrees in the summer. So far, so good though.

Assuming acceptable storage, green coffee does not "go bad" in the same sense that piece of fish in the fridge starts to stink or that bread or cheese gets green mold growing on it; it simply loses those qualities that made it distinctive in the first place. This is especially noticeable with fruity single origin coffees, especially dry processed single origins (many or most from Africa, e.g. Ethiopia and Yemen), just the sorts of coffee that I drink most of the time.

It is a joke to think that these coffees will hold for a year with normal room temperature storage; you would be lucky to have them hold onto their particular differentiating qualities for 3 months. There is no one on this planet with taste buds who likes these sorts of coffee who can dispute this. These coffees are PERISHABLE. I don't care how you store them at room temperature; pick your type of bag or put them in a vacuum bag, they are going to lose their unique qualities quickly at room temperature, no matter what Tom or anyone else says about them. To think otherwise is simply foolish and implies no personal experience in dealing with these sorts of coffees.

The only thing that I can think of that might preserve these flavor nuances is freezing when the green coffee is still young and retains its original qualities. I have started doing this myself with newly received green coffees. In fact, I bought a small 5 cubic foot chest freezer from Costco recently, exclusively for green coffee storage.

I do not yet have enough personal experience with green coffee freezing to be able to say how well it works in my hands. George Howell is a big proponent of freezing green coffees, but I myself do not have the experience to say that it works, for sure. I do have the experience to say that stored at room temperature, these fruity African dry processed coffees will lose most of their differentiating qualities after a few month's storage at room temperature. I hope that freezing works, because without freezing I can't see any way to preserve these coffees in an attractive state for more than 2 or 3 months after they first arrive at the suppliers.

ken