Buying the Best Coffee Beans: Storage & Freshness (Part 1)

If you are going to spend good money on the best coffee beans in the world, it simply makes sense to safeguard your investment. With generic coffee, people have a tendency to throw caution to the wind. You simply acknowledge and accept the fact that your beans will gradually lose their freshness, but it is far from the end of the world with a low-cost commodity.

But when it comes to the best coffee beans money can buy, you’re looking at something significantly more valuable. Buying the best coffee beans in the world in bulk quantities can pave the way for significant savings, but naturally raises questions where storage and freshness are concerned.

The question is – exactly how long do the best coffee beans last? Properly stored, what kind of lifespan can you expect to get out of the best coffee beans in the world?

What Is the Shelf Life of Coffee Beans?

The fact that coffee is a perishable commodity means that it will always have a limited lifespan. At some point in the near or distant future, even the best coffee beans on the face of the earth will get bad.

In the meantime, the way you store them will have a marked impact on their freshness and quality. What’s important to remember is that there are three things that are out to spoil your coffee beans prematurely – light, oxygen, heat, and moisture. Exposure to any of these (or any combination thereof) and the longevity of your beans will be compromised...significantly.

Treated to ideal conditions, the shelf life of coffee beans can be surprisingly long. Freshly roasted, the best coffee beans in the world can last for as long as three months, without going bad. They may not taste as fresh as they did the day they were roasted, but you can get seriously good coffee from beans roasted a few months prior.

Storing Coffee Beans to Maximize Freshness

Here’s the good news – storing coffee beans in mind of maximizing their freshness and lifespan doesn’t have to be difficult. You simply have to follow the basic rules of storing these types of commodities in general, which begins with finding a cool, dark, and dry place.

This means that irrespective of your chosen container, it needs to be placed somewhere that isn’t going to be affected by nearby heat or light sources. A dark cupboard near a cooker in the kitchen is far from ideal, as is a shelf or counter exposed to direct sunlight. Fluctuations in temperature beyond a certain level can also have an adverse effect on the quality of coffee beans.

The ideal vessel for the best coffee beans in the world is one that excludes as much oxygen as possible. Preserving small batches of coffee beans in vacuum sealed bags, therefore, works wonders, extending the lifespan of your beans significantly.

To order the freshest specialty coffee visit Hayman’s online store. We bring you the best coffee beans in the world, including famous coffee legends like Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, best Kona coffee Hawaii, and Panama Geisha coffee beans (aka Gesha coffee) - click here to order today, we offer free worldwide shipping! 

More tips and insights into storing the world’s best coffee beans coming soon, in the second half of our two-part guide...