Quote:
Originally Posted by Blader
Most coffee drinkers have only tasted stale coffee and have no notion how good fresh can be.
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This has to be shouted from the rooftops.
I will only buy beans that indicate roast date, but a lot of roasters either don't provide that info or else make it difficult to figure out roast date- and you should not buy beans that are more than a couple of weeks off the roast if possible; never more than a month, and NEVER pre-ground. Whole beans stale in weeks but ground coffee stales in
minutes.
In Calgary, all the beans from 49th Parallel (sold at Caffe Artigiano, Bumpy's and Kawa/Java Jamboree) is roast dated. Fratello, who supply Good Earth, Beano and many others (incl Purple Perk) roast date their "cup of excellence" 8-oz bags but not always their other products, so if I want their very good Godfather espresso I get it from the 5-lb "bar bags" that are used for the shop's coffee; the big bags (from Fratello, not all roasters) have roast dates and they're usually very fresh; I've purchased Fratello beans at beano that were roasted 48 hours prior. Purple Perk only charges $12/lb for this one and I hope they don't figure out that they're charging too little- even Kicking Horse that's 6 months old is about $16/lb (which is the exact same price Kawa charges for insanely superior 49th Parallel Epic Espresso).
Phil and Sebastian's beans are very VERY clearly roast dated, and the Intelligentsia sold at DeVille is roast dated too.
Oso Negro and Mountain View (from Didsbury, available at Bumpy's and Community Natural Foods) roast dates too. So nobody needs to buy stale coffee anymore.