That's too bad. I've had beans from several professional roasters that just weren't very good at all until at least day 8, and sometimes even day 10. I thought, "Wow, what's wrong with this coffee? It tastes like cardboard!" Or, "It's underdeveloped and completely unbalanced." That wasn't what it was like when those opened up. It's been a long time since I had Linea's espresso blend. I had it in their store, and it was balanced and chocolatey. I'm skeptical that heat in shipping for a couple of days is going to destroy coffee wrapped for shipment whether or not it has a one-way valve. Consider the temperatures the beans were exposed to during the roast and the fact they're seriously releasing carbon dioxide during the first few days. Gas is going out, not in, and oxygen isn't going to stale it in that short of a time.

I offer an hypothesis that doesn't affect the flow characteristics but perhaps the undesirable flavour profile.
The lack of proper sealing, might lead to contamination of the product. I noticed that when experimenting with pressurising (2atm environment vs potentially 4-6.4 in bean) that smells from the plastic container stayed with the beans. To avoid the smell/flavour affecting the beans they needed to be properly separated and sealed in a bag within the container.

Don't ignore humidity. Here in San Antonio it hovers right around 100% overnight as my beans sit in an non climate-controlled warehouse before going to the local post office for delivery. They then sit in my mailbox, going from mid 70 degrees and off the charts high humidity to mid 90 degrees with declining humidity until I can pick them up when returning from work. The poor paper bag folded over and unsealed doesn't stand a chance. Again, no problem at all with beans in sealed one-way valve bags.

Anyone out there mail order beans that were delivered in unsealed paper bags, had them shipped across at least part of the country, and had them perform as they did when you know you had them fresh, like say at their cafe or another cafe that serves their beans?

uscfroadie wrote:Don't ignore humidity.

Ok, I won't.

Why would any serious roaster ship beans in a paper bag? That seems odd. Every roaster I've ever ordered from by mail uses sealed, one way valve bags for shipping. Can't see paper bags protecting against various elements.

I posted a question to Linea on Facebook and they responded that the sweet spot is 4 - 9 days post roast. So, there should have been some decent shots. This looks like it's worth contacting them and asking about your disappointing experience.

canuckcoffeeguy wrote:Why would any serious roaster ship beans in a paper bag? That seems odd. Every roaster I've ever ordered from by mail uses sealed, one way valve bags for shipping. Can't see paper bags protecting against various elements.

+1....