Buying Coffee

There are two factors to consider when it comes to buying coffee. Both of them have an effect on the freshness, quality, and flavor of the coffee you make at home. They are the coffee's form and source.

Obviously, you want the freshest coffee possible, and you'll learn how ground coffee expires at a faster rate than whole beans. The second factor is where you buy your coffee, and the care given by the source to make sure you are only sold quality fresh coffee.

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How to Buy and Where to Buy Coffee

There are two ways that you can buy your coffee: in whole beans or already ground. Many places that sell whole beans also allow you to grind them on-. Good coffee is fresh coffee, and the first thing you need to remember is that coffee is perishable and expiring for as long as it is in contact with air. Any so-called 'airtight' container lets in some air and that air comes into contact with your coffee. The second -and probably more important- consideration is that ground coffee expires at a faster rate than whole bean coffee.

The bottom line: Buy your coffee in whole bean form. Grind it at home.

Let's Get Started

• I want to know how I should buy coffee?
• I would like to know where I should buy coffee?

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How to Buy Coffee

Whole Beans and Ground Coffee

Ground coffee expires at a faster rate than whole beans. This is due to the higher surface exposure of grinds compared to a whole bean. Grinding the coffee breaks it down and it will go stale faster, so the advice is that you only buy in whole beans and grind only what you need for the pot of coffee you're about to brew.

Since you want to keep your coffee in bean form, buy your coffee in whole beans rather than ground. It's more convenient to buy your coffee already ground in big cans, but your cup of coffee will be fresher and have more flavor if the coffee is bought in whole beans and brewed shortly after it's ground.

Sources For Coffee

The only form of coffee that does not expire within days of being exposed to air is green, unroasted coffee beans. Unroasted beans can keep for years, and only start to expire when the beans are roasted. Obviously from this point, ground roasted coffee will expire at a faster rate than whole bean roasted coffee.

While this information isn't always available from where you buy beans, you would rather buy coffee that has been roasted within the last week. Also, buy only as much as you intend to grind and brew in the following couple to few weeks. Better coffee shops will have roasting information and likely have it posted somewhere in the store. By contrast, you will not get this information from the minimum wage-paid employees of a grocery store or even a smaller chain of coffee shops. While the raw green coffee bean can stay fresh for years, roasting the bean causes the natural oils -from which flavor comes- to slowly and eventually exit the bean as it becomes stale.

Finding quality whole coffee beans might not be as easy as you'd think. Where I live, for instance, there are no specialty coffee shops, leaving me to either grocery stores or the closest Starbucks. This is why I buy my coffee beans online, and I encourage you to learn more about buying coffee online.

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Where to Buy Coffee

Grocery Store Coffee

Advantages:

• You can buy your coffee while you're buying your other groceries.
• Convenience. There are a lot more grocery stores in any given area than gourmet coffee shops.

Disadvantages:

• No information on how recently the coffee was roasted.
• Convenience packaging. Comes wrapped air-tight or in a can. Generally a weak selection of whole beans, focusing more on ground coffee in a can or vacuum-packaging.
• Generally a weak selection reflecting the great variety of coffee from around the world.
• Weak advice or information from grocery store employees who are hired more to stock the shelves than help you select your coffee.

Your local grocery store probably offers both ground coffee and whole coffee beans.

Ground coffee will come either vacuum-packed or in a big steel can with a rubber lid. If your ground coffee is vacuum-packed, at least it's being kept fresh in the hands of the grocery store's supply chain. The amount of time that passed between it's being grounded by the supplier and vacuum-packed, you'll never know. Also, the vacuuming process can potentially accelerate the coffee going stale from exposure to air.

Ground coffee sold in big cans is also airtight. What's more, it provides you with a relatively airtight container in which to keep the coffee after you've broken the seal. You don't get this benefit with the vacuum-packaging that you cut open and discard. You can still make a decent cup of coffee if you buy it in a can because the rubber lid does keep the air and coffee separate for the most part. It's not literally airtight, so some air will find weak points in the seal and contribute to the ground coffee going stale. The combination of how long it will take you to go through this much coffee, the fact that it's already been ground, and the ability of air to seep into and out of the can means that, while decent, this is definitely not the freshest way to buy coffee.

The grocery store will sell whole beans either vacuum-packed or often out of large, clear vertically-tall containers in a display of different blends and flavors in the same aisle as the rest of the coffee. With the vacuum-packed beans, you have an attractive option for buying coffee. They haven't been ground and their packaging is airtight. However, the grocery store's supplier may or may not be taking the best steps in keeping the coffee fresh until it's vacuum-sealed, and again, you'll never know until you've bought it and are drinking it. You also dont't know when the beans were roasted. There's no way to know because after all, this is a grocery store and not a specialty coffee shop.

The display of different blends and flavors in the clear containers is a source of controversy, and it's not recommended except for those who love the specialty-flavored coffees. The reason is that the flavor oils -such as Hazelnut or Irish Cream- remain on the bean no matter how stale it gets so that you could use them to brew a stale but ironically flavorful cup of coffee. For the coffee lover, it isn't a good coffee but will retain the flavor from the oils added to the bean during the roasting process.

The upside of the whole bean display is the grocery store is taking a step towards providing coffee lovers with a variety of whole beans, leaving grinding them to you so you can make a fresher cup. But in some respects, even more freshness and flavor is lost. First, the display is not likely airtight so while the beans are not yet ground, they are constantly exposed to air leading to their going stale. Second, the residue of flavored coffees -or any coffees, for that matter- needs to be thoroughly cleaned or it will "contaminate" the next batch of beans put in that container. If the grocery store changes up their selection, those containers are not likely getting the cleaning required to keep this contamination from happening. What's more, there is little to stop the aroma of one flavored-roasted bean from permeating the beans in another bin. Third, the ideal container for storing coffee is opaque to reduce chemical reaction of the coffee beans to light. While the grocery store display is an attractive display of coffee beans, fresh coffee prefers an opaque container.

What does this all mean? If you must buy your coffee from the grocery store, here is the order I would suggest for the best degree of freshness:

1. Vacuum-sealed whole beans.
2. The smaller portions of vacuum-sealed ground coffee.
3. A can of ground coffee.
4. Whole beans on display (in small portions).

Specialty Coffee Shops

Advantages:

• Knowledgeable staff that can help you with your selection.
• The chance to sample a brewed cup of coffee before committing to an order of whole beans.
• Pre-packaged airtight whole beans in smaller amounts.
• A good selection worthy of the coffee lover.

Disadvantages:

• Not as easy to find as a grocery store.
• An extra stop to make in your day if you need more coffee.
• Limited information on when the beans were roasted.
• Only as many varieties of coffee as a retail shop can hold.

It's easy enough to find out what options you have around you. Grab your Yellow Pages and look for "coffee". If you have trouble finding a listing, it's probably because your options are limited. I get a lot of questions about Starbucks, so here is my opinion of it.

Starbucks was founded by coffee lovers, so while it is a soulless multibillion dollar corporation, it is built on the foundation of both satisfying other coffee lovers and making new coffee lovers out of the rest of us. Starbucks took an intentional stance against selling flavored coffees as a crime against coffee purism. I believe that they deal only with importers and roasters who can prove they will deliver a quality whole bean properly handled and packaged. They know coffee and represent a high-value (definition: high-cost) source for buying the coffee you need to make a great cup at home.

Why Buy Online?

More variety at your fingertips.

A warehouse full of the best coffees in the world is a little big to fit inside your local coffee shop, but it can all fit inside a website. Because a website is virtual, the only limit to how much variety it can offer the online shopper is the inventory space it has. Imagine if a local coffee importer/roaster had a warehouse that you could walk into anytime. That variety and accessibility is offered by online coffee sources. Even the Starbucks Store offers more variety of coffee than most individual retail Starbucks locations.

Online shopping has never been safer or more secure.

While some people have been skeptical about online shopping, third party measures make sure that your online shopping experience is safe and secure. Personal or financial information that you're required to give to order online is encrypted and kept private so that using your credit card to order online is as dangerous as using it to pay a restaurant bill.

Dependable sources sell coffee online.

Not only is online shopping safer and more secure, big names in coffee are selling coffee online. Companies like Starbucks and Boca Java reinforce people's confidence in online shopping.

An online store has less overhead and passes the savings on to you.

An online store filling orders out of their warehouse has less overhead than a retail store. The cost of maintaining a website is less than the cost of running a brick-and-mortar store, and that means less overhead. Online stores pass these savings on to you, so that you will find that a pound of coffee from an online store is less expensive than the same coffee to the same standard from a retail store.

Online stores better roast to order.

A good online store like Boca Java roasts the day before your beans are shipped to you to ensure maximum freshness. An online store can do this more efficiently as they collect orders all day while roasting to satisfy all orders that came in the previous day. Retail stores can only sell beans that have already been roasted, and how recently can be anybody's guess.

MakeGoodCoffee.com can help.

We set out to create an unbiased objective Report Card against which to measure today's most reputable online sources for coffee. We wanted to address the points above, particularly where online shopping is unique. For instance, if a store presents its standards for a safe and secure online shopping experience, it is superior -all other things being equal. Because shopping online means not being able to see and feel what you are buying until it's delivered, we also wanted to gauge a store's ability to add that third dimension of tangibility to your shopping experience through small sample portions or clever use of the Web. Other factors, like a wide variety of good coffee, plenty of information for the consumer, and top-notch customer service, were also important to determine the best of the best.

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