I buy my coffee from the Fire Roasted Coffee Co. in London, Canada.  Like many, I used to buy all my coffee from the grocery store, already ground and in a big steel can so I wouldn’t have to worry about it for a month or so.  After all, if you never try great coffee, you’ll probably never be unhappy with decent coffee.


This point was driven home for me when I recently went on vacation with friends to Hawaii.  They both love to drink coffee but like me, only knew coffee from a grocery store in the steel can.  While we shared a beachhouse, I took responsibility for coffee, including selecting what we drank and making it every day.  To their surprise, they never had coffee so good.  I made coffees from both Kona and Kauai, and they were blown away.  They had only one question: how can I get coffee that good when I get home?

For this job, I recruited Patrick Dunham of the Fire Roasted Coffee Company.  The challenge: send two pounds of their coffee to my friends on a monthly basis and use their feedback to decide which ones they might like best in each next month’s installment.  My friends live a distance from the roastery, but it was easy enough to do since Fire Roasted Coffee can take orders and ship from their website no matter where you are.

It would take quite a bit of trial and error to do this on your own, but thanks to Patrick’s expertise, we’re able to cut down the number of coffees that my friends likely won’t enjoy based on their feedback of ones they’ve been sent previously.  In their first shipment, Patrick opted for a couple rarer coffees, including a limited-supply Haitian coffee that my friends really liked.  In their second installment, an Indonesian Sulawesi that got mixed reviews and a Bolivian Peaberry coffee that my friends liked so much, we’ll be including it as a repeat in the occasional future order.

Most recently, Patrick shipped them two varieties of Ethiopian coffee, a Sidamo and a Limu, as we both wait for my friends’ verdict.

You can’t get this kind of service, expertise, or quality from a grocery store and despite the smiles and friendly service, not likely from a Starbucks either.  You can only get this kind of service from a local roaster that gets to know their customers and know their coffees so well that they can make smart matches like my friends are getting.  Even when I walk into the Fire Roasted Coffee Company today, the same gentleman that sold me a pound of Hawaiian Kona coffee still remembers that was the first one I bought from them.  And that’s why local roasters are awesome!

In late July of this year, Starbucks announced that ten months after the launch of its new VIA Instant Coffee, that sales of the product had hit $100 million globally.

Starbucks VIA Instant Coffee is available in a bigger and more economical bulk format from the Starbucks Store online.  Click here to learn about the Starbucks 50-Serving Colombia Ready Brew.  At $34.95 for 50 servings, you pay 70 cents for a cup of coffee that is ready in as fast as it takes water to boil and according to Starbucks, with all the flavor of its in-store coffee that costs about twice this.


You may remember when the VIA instant coffee was first launched and I was challenged to tell the difference between that and their machine-brewed coffee.  What gave it away for me was almost a complete lack of aroma in the instant coffee.  And if you don’t remember, yes, I killed that challenge without guessing.

When Starbucks announced the launch of an instant coffee, it was a shock to the specialty coffee market that Starbucks had a large hand in awakening.  After all, instant coffee gained popularity in the 40s and 50s in response to rising coffee prices and the overwhelming resistance of North American consumers to pay anymore for coffee than the nickle they were paying.

Instant coffee was cheaper to make than to sell ground coffee and it grew in popularity as people couldn’t give up the drink but weren’t going to pay any more for it.  It was also a popular format in wartime since soldiers needed only to boil water and dissolve the coffee crystals for the cuppa they needed.  But the bottom line is that the quality of coffee was terrible!

As more quality has been demanded even of canned ground coffee, and as specialty coffee and the quality associated with it has grown in popularity, instant coffee has never been so obsolete.  Grocery stores carry less of it than ever, so it was a big surprise that the company that led the specialty coffee charge would be the one to make instant coffee popular again.

My take? To me, instant coffee is the same as the percolator, great for camping (or wartime, I suppose)!  By that, I mean it’s so convenient when I’m somewhere I can’t take my coffee bar with me.  I wouldn’t buy the best instant coffee in the world to make myself at home because I have time to brew a coffee the right away, either with my drip-brewer or french press.  But I will say that for convenience when that’s not possible, Starbucks has definitely created not only the most drinkable instant coffee I’ve ever had, but I’ll admit a surprisingly nice coffee all around.

Question: I had an argument with [grocery store chain]. I think selling thanksgiving coffee and chrismas coffee in July is a little late, they are selling old coffee instead of sending it back to the vendor or throwing it away. I think if you are paying for something it should be fresh. This is a low income area and I think they are misinterpreting the people who live here as stupid. Just how long can coffee stay on a shelf.I believe in fresh roasted beans ground just prior to (I use a french press) brewing. I was astonished they were putting off 6/7 month old ground coffee at .00 for 13 ounces. You are an expert and in a grocery store it is hard to find fresh roasted beans and not everyone has a grinder, but under just normal circumstances what do you think? — Hallie



Answer: You are absolutely correct Hallie, no vendor should be selling 6-7 month old coffee.  Before coffee is roasted, it keeps for 1-2 years without going stale.  After it’s been roasted, it’s good for 2-3 weeks.  If they have some kind of vacuum packaging, this will extend the life of the coffee but certainly not by that long a period.  They shouldn’t be selling this coffee.  If you buy it from them already ground, then it’s even less fresh – coffee expires at a faster rate after it’s been ground so you have even less than 2-3 weeks from that point.  By then, it’s lost alot of its flavor and I wouldn’t buy that coffee even at a discount.  At least you are brewing your coffee by french press which is one of the best ways to brew coffee, but won’t save the flavor that’s already been lost in coffee that old.  I hope this helps.

Click to learn more about the Golden Rules of Coffee and making sure it’s fresh and full of flavor.