A note on freshness

Like I may have stated in the past I am anything but a coffee snob, I think, much like anything here in America, we can drink whatever type of coffee in whatever format or manifestation we please. Taste is just like everything else, subjective. How can I tell you that what you like is garbage, I am sure some one out there thinks the things I like or do or see or listen to is crap, oh well, I like it and dang it you only live once. The big however though is that I can expose others to what I think is good and why I think it is good and let them make a decision. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, I'll still listen to Lee Morgan, drive the speed limit and continue not to shave my soul patch. With that said, I saw an advertisement last night for Folgers flavor seal can, it pictured an average middle aged work-a-day business man who is stopped on the street to taste coffee for flavor, he is blind folded and begins drinking the coffee just opened from a flavor seal can. To sum it up he ends up getting to the bottom of the can, after what I would image would be about 50 cups of coffee, I mean first of all wouldn't your judgment be a little skewed after 50 cups, well maybe not, not sure who I'm talking to here. Anyways, the moral is that the first cup tasted the same as the last cup over what was a simulated length of one can ownership, supposedly a week or something. The idea? That the coffee tastes the same "freshness" from the first time you open it to the last. My point, yes it does taste the same, the ad is not false advertising. Why you ask? Because it was flat, lifeless and stale from the beginning. Coffee is a living entity, from the moment you roast it, the clock is ticking, its best consumed 24-48 hours after roasting, the flavor holds pretty good in whole bean form, sealed in a degassing valve bag for about 3 months or a little more. Once a bag is opened and the beans are still whole bean and stored in an air tight container you've got a few weeks. But start grinding the beans and storing them and the volatile flavor components escape faster than Michael Shumacher at Monaco. Granted this description is a bit bleak and its not like the coffee immediately becomes unconsumable, like "this bean will self-destruct in 25 seconds..." What happens is the flavor degrades, over time most of the flavor compounds are gone and the cup will taste flat and lifeless. My point then is to think about the manufacturing, stocking and sitting that happens in a large retail situation. Simply, its a long time, for canned ground coffee, even if its sealed, it means it most likely arrives at the store already stale. I hope I didn't anger anyone who really loves those brands, I didn't mean for it to be a anti-canned coffee rant, because like my Mom who really knows coffee only as tasting like that wouldn't have it any other way, even when I brew her something I just pulled from the roaster, she politely says "Wow this is great" and ultimately I find it on the window sill later with just a few sips gone. So drink on, anything you want. But know that it might not be as fresh as the can boasts.

for more info on choosing grocery store coffee's check out this fabulous review of Grocery Brands:
http://www.coffeereview.com/article.cfm?ID=128