There are many schools of thought – (old wives tales and myths) on storing roasted beans – and the two main ones are the good old fridge or freezer.

Who the hell decided that storing coffee in a cold damp (moisture) place was good for coffee? I mean you need water to brew coffee (moisture. If you are storing your coffee in a fridge or freezer you may as well store them in a lake for all the good it is doing. Reason - when you put your roasted coffee beans into either of these hives of moisture your beans are at an ambient (room) temperature and when items of an ambient temperature cool rapidly you get something called a phase change.

For a phase change and condensation to occur you need a surface and heat energy - the surface in this case are your beans and the packaging. The heat energy is the ambient temperature of your beans and the packaging they are contained – as this heat energy is removed the formation of microscopic water droplets occur on the surfaces (beans, inside and outside the packaging) and/or ice crystals occur (freezer) as water in the atmosphere condenses at the surface to a dew point. So at this point you have coffee beans, moisture and cold – three things that do not live well together wonderful tastes dissolving coffee oils. There are only really two ways to get ultra-fresh coffee:

1. Roast your own

2. Buy little and often from a good coffee roaster such as Coffee Real!