# Coffee storage and freshness

## The rules

1. **Best within 4 weeks of the roast date.** The date is printed on every bag — it is the day the coffee
   was roasted, not a "best by" guess.
2. **Sealed and unopened, coffee keeps about 12 months.** It will taste flat long before then.
3. Store the bag somewhere cool, dark, and dry. A cupboard is correct. A windowsill is not.
4. Roll the bag down and use the tin tie. Air is what stales coffee.
5. Buy whole bean if you own a grinder. Ground coffee stales in **days**.

## Why we ship a 250 g bag for single origins

Blends come in 340 g. Single origins come in 250 g on purpose: they cost more per gram, and we would
rather you finished the bag inside the four-week window than admired the last third of it in week seven.

## The freezer question

Freezing works, with conditions:

- Freeze only **sealed, unopened** bags, or coffee portioned into single doses in airtight containers.
- Never re-freeze. Every trip in and out puts condensation on the beans, and water on roasted coffee is
  worse than the staling you were trying to avoid.
- Grind straight from frozen. Do not thaw first.
- Only bother if you are storing for more than a month. For a bag you will finish in three weeks, the
  cupboard is better.

## What stale coffee tastes like

Flat first, then papery, then faintly of cardboard. It does not become sour or rancid, so it is easy to
miss — most people conclude they have lost their touch when the actual answer is the bag is nine weeks old.

Coffee more than about eight weeks past roast will not taste bad enough to throw away and will not taste
good enough to be worth the beans.

## Degassing, and why very fresh coffee brews oddly

Coffee releases carbon dioxide for days after roasting. That gas pushes water away from the grounds, which
means:

- **Espresso** wants **4 or more days** of rest. Pulled at day 1 it gushes and channels.
- **Filter** is fine from about day 3.
- Very fresh coffee will bloom dramatically in a pour-over. That is the gas, not a quality signal.

## What "best within 4 weeks" does not mean

It does not mean the coffee is unsafe, and it does not mean we will not sell you a bag at week three. It
is the window in which the coffee tastes like what we intended.

If a bag arrives and it is already stale — the roast date is old, or it was damaged in transit — that is
on us. Report it within 14 days of delivery and we replace it free. See
[Returns and refunds](../policies/returns-and-refunds.md).

## Related

- [Grind size chart](grind-size-chart.md)
- [Water for brewing](water-for-brewing.md)