EB inquires: is it true that coffee, once roasted, is delicious at first but rapidly goes stale?
Coffee Beans

Nearly all of the coffee out there is stale …. Coffee, just a few days out of the roaster, is nature’s most flavorful drink — more complex than even wine — containing well over 900 flavor compounds to dance on your taste buds. But after a few weeks, you’d be lucky to see half that number.

How do you know if coffee is stale? Simple test: If it’s bitter or flat, it’s too late. Coffee is actually known by connoisseurs as a ’sweet’ beverage. But shush… you’re not supposed to know that. And who doesn’t want you to know? Coffee companies who make their living on convenience.

[Coffee Fool]

Karl Jones with CoffeeI’m more of a junkie than a connoisseur, but here’s my take on the issues.

“Nearly all of the coffee out there is stale” — probably true in general; certainly true of pre-ground mass-marketed coffee. Qualifier: “stale” is a sensual judgement call, not a universal constant.

“Well over 900 flavor compounds” — I should think so, although I’m no chemist.

“After a few weeks … half that number” — probably true; certainly, volatile aromatic hydrocarbons will dissipate within a days or weeks (i.e. smell-flavor molecules go away).

“If it’s bitter or flat, it’s too late” — true: you can’t make bitter flat coffee into sweet rich coffee.

“Who doesn’t want you to know? Coffee companies who make their living on convenience.” — probably true, it makes sense.

I spoke to a coffee wholesaler once, at a party. He told me that convenience-store coffee has less flavor and more caffeine, because the beans are grown at lower altitudes. Better coffee — rich flavors, less caffeine — grows at higher altitudes, costs more because it’s more labor-intensive to harvest in smaller quantities.

Caffeine MoleculeThe same coffee salesman also told me that espresso contains less caffeine than standard coffee. Start with the same unit of beans, make both espresso and brew coffee — espresso obviously has less volume and more flavor than the brew coffee, but espresso is less caffeinated because the rapid passage of steam through grounds does not dissolve as much caffeine.