Do you freeze your coffee beans? Bea, a single elderly lady, has an upright freezer in addition to her refrigerator and a mini fridge that sometimes is off. She freezes almost everything. When people were hoarding food and supplies early in the pandemic, my brother and I guessed that Mom might be able to survive six months with the things in her freezer and pantry.
My husband and I took a tour of Hula Daddy Kona Coffee a while back. In their story they talk about their goal of being one of the top ten coffees in the world, and they frequently make analogies with great wine. They often top the list of coffee cuppings here. Their Kona Sweet coffee costs $95 a pound. Their marketing is tops. I had a difficult time keeping the fine differences straight when we tasted their many types of roasted coffees. We were interested in the details of each, not content with just referring to them by size (big/small), color of their bags, or their prices, which almost all the other visitors at the time seemed to care about. Something interesting to me … for their tastings, they keep all their coffee in the freezer, and they took out what they needed to brew straight from the freezer.
I liked this article about freezing coffee, an interview with the founder and Senior VP of Proud Mary Coffee, based in Portland, Oregon. They apparently freeze all their coffee, both green and roasted. Their approach is pretty down to earth and shouldn’t intimidate the average home coffee brewer. They did, however, mention argon gas as a next step for those who enjoy going even further.
Another article, also by Daily Coffee News, talked about a new product from an Australian company, appropriately named Freezus, which are freezer-ready, vacuum-sealed, individual-sized portions of specialty coffee. The article opened with, “As the strategy of freezing roasted, whole-bean coffee has been cautiously promoted by a number of specialty coffee companies …”
I have read other articles that mentioned big debates about freezing or not freezing and why. We did our own non-rigorous experiments and found that frozen coffee about 5-10 days after roasting tasted better than a pound of coffee that slowly aged and oxidized in our cupboard. We let ours come to room temperature before brewing (there are practical reasons for that), but Hula Daddy doesn’t. So we do sometimes freeze our personal coffee, depending on the circumstances. If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you probably know my approach … read what the experts say, experiment if you feel like it, and do what’s worth it and works for you. And that’s not static. Things change. Explore, experiment, learn, stay flexible. One life.
Fun read. I especially appreciate the title.