Fresh coffee beans are by far the best for whichever way you brew your coffee. A great tasting cup of coffee never came from coffee beans that have been sat on a shelf in a supermarket for weeks, if not months!
The FRESHER, the BETTER!
There is such a variety of coffee that is available, the choices are endless. It will take time before you find ‘the one’, that perfect cup of saporous coffee that hits your coffee spot! You may well have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince or princess.
Our beans are roasted and delivered fresh to your door and there is no doubt that all the speciality beans in the Quirky Coffee Co range are as fresh as a daisy. However, a little patience is always good too. Beans, once roasted have to rest to lose the CO2 and this is when they are at their best for you to grind your beans and make your cup of coffee using your preferred brewing method.
Where to buy the freshest beans
Coffee beans are available to buy in so many places. Supermarkets, online shop, farmers markets and of course direct from coffee roasters and coffee shops. All of these resources will provide you with a bean that can give you a cup of coffee but finding the right place to purchase from to make a GREAT cup of coffee takes time. It is also important to note that supermarket shelves will not provide you with speciality coffee beans that you would be able to obtain elsewhere.
Supermarkets will stock their wide range of coffee from a variety of leading brand names and of course they will give you a cup of coffee in your hand. However, the supply chain in this instance will not give you, as the customer, the freshness that other suppliers will.
It is great to purchase from local suppliers too. Farmers markets are a great way to support your local coffee roaster. We attend a number of farmers markets across Hampshire, Surrey and Berkshire to name but a few and all of us here at Quirky Coffee Co love to meet our customers and help them with the best choice of beans to take home with them. If you don’t have a grinder at home? No problem, we can grind your selected beans for you when you make your purchase.
Buying your coffee beans direct from coffee roasters means that you will be receiving a bag of coffee with optimum freshness. Our beans are roasted and then sent directly to you as soon as they have rested – different beans having different resting times. No two beans are the same! There is a science behind the roasting and we always aim to get this right for every single bean for our customers.
Whole Bean or Ground
This is, of course, dependant upon whether you have a coffee grinder. We would always recommend owning a coffee grinder, especially so when you are spending good money on fresh coffee beans. The beans will stay fresher as a whole bean than if your bag of coffee is ground in one go. That is not to say that purchasing a bag of ground coffee is not good, it is, but if you can purchase a grinder to grind your coffee beans as, and when you want to use them the coffee will be even better!
If you are unsure about which grinder to buy, then please do not hesitate to contact us and we can give you the advice you need. As with anything, there are so many to choose from and making an investment with the right tools for the job really does help the taste of your speciality beans once ground and brewed.
Air is the enemy of flavoursome coffee as once ground you accelerate the oxidation process so as soon as the outer shell protecting your bean is cracked the flavour is muted more quickly. This is why it is better if you can purchase your coffee as a whole bean and grind each time you wish to brew.
Be aware if you are purchasing coffee from a coffee roaster and they are only offering it as ground coffee we would question why! A good coffee roaster will always supply their roasted beans as a whole bean. Yes, they will offer to grind them if you so wish but if they only provide ground coffee then walk away! We and other suppliers of freshly roasted coffee beans care about the coffee and you can contact us if you require any recommendations to explore new flavours.
Back to the beans…
Origin
There are many factors that take the raw green bean to a magnificent bean for you to brew. Altitude, soil chemistry, rainfall, and sunshine all contribute to the flavour of the final roasted coffee bean, so the origin of the bean is an important factor.
If your coffee supplier cannot tell you where the beans have come from you may want to reconsider your purchase. Coffee grows and thrives along the Bean Belt which is the zone between 25°north and 30° south along the equator, with more than 50 Countries producing coffee. All different climates and processing techniques mean that you get to explore so many different coffee flavours and there is always something new to be found.
All of our beans have their own story to tell. In our shop, we share with you exactly where they have come from, altitude, their origin, processing techniques and more.
Arabica or Robusta?
Please read our blog What are Arabica Coffee Beans? This will be able to tell you more but in summary, Arabica is KING!
The Roast
There is no standard way of roasting coffee beans however there are four main categories: light, medium, medium-dark and dark roasts. The coffee won’t necessarily be named with one of these categories, but this gives you an idea of how coffee is roasted. The art of roasting and the variety of different roasts available is a lengthy topic and a blog worthy of its own page!
Roast date and use-by-date
Coffee has a long shelf life. Meaning you will not get sick from drinking year-old coffee however, it won’t taste very nice at all.
Coffee that you buy from a supermarket is more likely to have a use-by-date on the packaging rather than a roast date. If you are looking for freshly roasted coffee, a use-by-date is a useless piece of information.
All of our coffee is packaged and the ‘roasted on’ date is printed on the product label for you to see when your beans were roasted.
How much coffee should I buy?
Of course, this depends on how much you drink!
Buying in bulk and having a supply for months on end is not a good idea. Purchasing enough for your weekly or fortnightly consumption is a great way to buy. Not only does it mean for that time you will be drinking fresh coffee every day but also you get the chance to try new types of coffee on a regular basis when you purchase next time.
Always try something new…
Try new flavours, step outside of your coffee comfort zone! You may not absolutely love every type of coffee you try, but we are willing to bet that you will find a lot of favourites along the way.
Where to store your coffee beans
There is always a debate about whether you should keep your coffee in the fridge, or not! We say, NOT IN THE FRIDGE! Don’t do this. It doesn’t work. In fact, the freshness of the beans will not remain, and the flavour will be ruined.
As long as you keep your coffee sealed and in a cool dry place this is perfectly fine. In fact, and to satisfy ourselves with this, we kept a sample of our coffee beans in the fridge and some sealed in their packet in a cool, dry place. The beans from the fridge had lost flavour and also the beans did not look fresh at all. Whereas the beans stored out of the fridge tasted PERFECT!
At the end of the day, this will always remain a matter of preference by the consumer, BUT we would most definitely recommend that your Quirky Coffee Co speciality coffee beans are NOT kept in the fridge. All our bags of coffee are re-sealable and therefore zip up your bag of beans and place safely in a cool dry area.
Now what…
Please visit our shop and browse our range of single origin and Quirky Coffee Co blends and try something new today. Freshly roasted, delivered to your door for you to enjoy!
