i just got a bag of jjbeans ('espresso jj') coffee from art java in montreal; roast date on the bag is dec 7th, or about a month old. im pretty sure i was once told this is in the older ranger for roasts .. now, this place usually knows their stuff i and i usually get excellent coffee from them.

thing is, im having an awful time trying to pull a decent shot from this. it's very 'thin' tasting compared to my usual leftist from gimme or even to some obscure brand i got from a local shop which was probably alot older than one month .. the shots start very slowly, almost choking at times, and then stream, although it remains relatively thin, doesn't quite blonde right .. it just seems to lose body, becoming a tad translucent, instead of the nice opaque blond stream i would usually get mid-way.

so could it be the coffee (in regards to the roast date), or should i keep playing around, trying to 'dial it in' as they say .. ?

Yep, it's too old - that's how it behaves. They should replace it.

+1 on the coffee age being a probable issue. I wouldn't recommend buying coffee over a week old in general, and it sounds like you've bought the coffee from a shop that's not QCing their inventory of beans. So you got them from here? It might be worthwhile to contact them and let them know what happened. If they don't offer to replace your past-prime coffee, you might ask if they would consider doing so. If they are indifferent to the fact that they sold you stale coffee, you might contact JJ Bean directly and inform them of what happened. Some quality-oriented roasters take retailers selling their coffee when it's stale pretty seriously, because it reflects on their reputation. But keep in mind people make mistakes, life happens and sometimes bags slip through and end up dead on the shelf despite efforts to stop that. Hopefully they'll help you out, and for future reference if you're buying in-store it's best to check the date prior to purchase and reject coffee that's so old.

I agree that the symptoms you are giving suggest a past it prime coffee.

I sometime use coffee that is older than what some would call prime or even past expiry but I can almost always can get something decent out of it. I know that it sound cheap but I just like to challenge of making something good with less than perfect ingredient. But you will probably never get a god shot out of that.

It is up to you if you want to try to get something out of it. One month old is past prime but it should not be so stale as not to be able to get something out of it.

Beans age differently. I've had espressos from one month old beans that were actually pretty nice and still flowing pretty normally. That's not always the case, though. I'd say, rarely. I think a lot depends on how a coffee is roasted and where it's from. Some of it also surely depends on your standards.

If you want to try to make something more drinkable, try cutting your shots shorter. As you say they're losing body quick. It's likely this latter part is bitter/overextracted, so just make shorter shots. You might want to dose a good bit higher than usual as well; this should let you up the volume without allowing the really thin flow in your cup.

If your first drips of your shots are really black, you may want to pull that into the drip tray and THEN place the cup underneath the flow. This type of shot bracketing can chop off the most unpalatable parts of shots made from stale beans.

That's probably too old to really get decent results from.

You might want to try grinding coarser, updosing and cutting the shots short (1.25oz double in around 22s would be a suggested starting point).

Personally, I'd chuck the coffee and start over.

well .. im a little puzzled .. this joint is one of the best coffee places in this city (that i know of anyway); and most gimme coffees i ever bought from them was never more than a week old by 'roast date'...

the girl behind the counter told me they had recently switched to jjbeans as their 'house' coffee (in fact, as i only ordered a half a bag, she poured the remaining half in their grinder). i'll definitely pay better attention to the roast date. i just wasnt sure if it really was an issue, being 'just' a month old.

this spot has some skilled baristas, unlike most cafes that will serve you crap topped with hard bubbly foam, it really looks like they know what their doing. and for that reason i'd hate to come up to them, the noob that i am, in telling them how to do their job.

if i see that the roast date on my next purchase is just as old, i'll ask for a newer bag .. maybe they'll then get the hint..

shadowfax wrote:...Some of it also surely depends on your standards.

I know Nicholas, my standards are low! I bring the bar lower to make it easier for the newbies (which I am and always will be) to fit in. There is a limited quantity of places to get fresh coffee around here and sometime it is a assle to get to them...

pedepy wrote:...this joint is one of the best coffee places in this city (that i know of anyway)...

Paul, may I recommend Cafe Myriad on Mackay? I will not go in the detail here but THEY know their stuff! They sell 49th Parallel and their Competition blend is very good.

Also Cafe Union on St-Laurent can make you a custom blend if you just ask.

If the café is as good as it sounds, it's likely a simple mistake. If you were to inquire about it politely I anticipate that you'd get an apology and a free, fresh bag. A quality café would not knowingly sell a customer month-old coffee to a 'noob' or a seasoned pro. You shouldn't need to 'hint' to a good shop that they should sell fresher beans, and you don't need to tell anyone how to do their job: just find a polite way to ask them what their policy is on the age of retail coffee sales.

Not that I'm pressing you to talk to them about it, just reassuring you that you have no need to feel like you don't have the ground to for any reason. You have every reason to think that a polite inquiry will be met with a polite and helpful response. That said, I wouldn't complain about it either--for myself, I'd think caveat emptor and use it as a learning experience to be more cautions about roast dates next time as you plan to.

Whale wrote:I know Nicholas, my standards are low!

Er, that wasn't a jab at you, actually maybe a bit more at myself. I haven't had month-old coffee in probably four years, and while I remember it being plenty nice then, both my palate and my barista skills were very untrained back then. So I threw that out there as a caveat to my own claim.

shadowfax wrote:Er, that wasn't a jab at you, actually maybe a bit more at myself. I haven't had month-old coffee in probably four years, and while I remember it being plenty nice then, both my palate and my barista skills were very untrained back then. So I threw that out there as a caveat to my own claim.

I did think it was a jab at all. I was throwing a jab at myself for not having higher standards and I was trying to justify myself to you guys for not aiming for the absolute best that I could.