If you haven’t been to The Oatmeal, it is worth a visit. It’s a site full of irreverent quizzes, comics, polls and loads of other ways to fill an afternoon in front of the computer while sipping a Brass Monkey or a cup of Moon River.

Enjoy!

Think of coffee as cooked food. Soon after cooking, it’s all downhill from there. I think bread is a good analogy. The question “How long will this last?” takes on new meaning then doesn’t it? At least when I bake a loaf of bread (okay, w/ the help of modern machinery), I know that the question really is “How long before it grows mold?”. I’m also aware that the bread quality drops with each passing day, AND that if I leave the bag open, and/or slice it in advance, things go south in a hurry.

It’s similar with coffee beans, (but without the mold :^). In fact, those beans will last a good long time – probably years without growing mold. But the flavor is sneaking away the longer you keep it, and there’s no stopping that. After coffee comes out of the roaster, unlike bread, it’s flavor seems to peak at 2 to 3 days out. There’s a certain “magic” or nuance that can be coaxed out of a coffee bean initially, but that’s going to go away no matter what you do (okay, maybe think about it like a love affair?). Then there’s a place where the flavor is still pretty darn decent, if not extraordinary, but with no obvious stale or off flavors. And after awhile, the flavor continues to get lost (or get less interesting) and a stale flavor begins to set in. Or at least so I’m told. If I smell stale coffee I’ll drink tea, water, or nothing… (I plead the 5th on the love affair analogy at this point).

So how long does all this take you ask? Well, it depends. It depends on how old the coffee was when you bagged it. Do you know? It depends on what you do next. Do you fill up a glass container, squeezing most of the air out and leave it closed until you need it (great idea!)? Do you leave it in the kraft bag you purchased it in – which doesn’t seal anyway?Toss it in the freezer and pull it out each time you make a pot (no, no, no)? What if each pot’s worth of beans were one slice of bread. Would you put it in a bag and fill the bag up with air? Would you grind it into crumbs and then be disappointed that it dried out in a few hours?

Consider this example: Two people each buy a pound of the exact same coffee that will last them exactly TWO weeks. Connoisseur  “A” divides her beans into 3 small glass vessels and fills them to the brim (I use jelly jars). She uses the coffee from one jar before moving on to the next. Addict “B” leaves his beans all in the same bag. At the end of the 2 weeks, which person’s coffee will taste the best? Who got their money’s worth? 

If you think of coffee beans as bread, you’ll know what to do and not do with your beans. The question isn’t about how long they will last. The question is more about the implications of aging on the flavor of the bean, and what you can do to slow that down a bit – or speed it up. For some guidelines, check out the brewing guide on freshness. You’re certainly welcome to grind your coffee at the store, or to leave it on your counter in a bag, or to keep getting in the same bag over and over, versus dividing it up into smaller portions and sealing them. You can do whatever you want, but hopefully you now have a better idea of the cost you may be paying.

And for me, at least, I ask myself how I’m honoring all the effort, passion and energy put in to getting these beans to my home. I choose to honor the natural and human worlds that produced this lovely seed. And why not?

Good Brewing!  ~Z

• IGNORE the “fancy” aspects of your grinder. If you’ve got a grinder that has a big ol’ hopper on the top that holds 1/2 lb of beans and maybe even some knob or timer with a setting for number of cups etc.
• Measure the beans, not the grounds: If you know you need 3/8 of a cup of ground coffee, just add 3/8 of a cup of beans to your empty grinder, and grind ALL of it.
• Know how much water you’re using: “Cups” on a drip brewer are not the same as a cup of water (8 oz). Your carafe and/or the markings where you fill water are NOT a standardized measuring device like a measuring cup (hopefully) is. Those “cup” numbers are likely only 5 to 6 oz. per “cup”. In my world, that means my 16 oz cup of coffee is actually THREE “cups”. So, consider measuring before you pour in the water – maybe make a little chart and put it on the inside of your cabinet door.
• (note to self: use fewer quotation marks in your blogs)
• Do the conversion: I keep a little chart taped on my cabinet door, kinda like the one below. And note that your brew basket may not hold that much coffee. Hence, the recommendation on our Brew Guide to brew only 2/3 of a pot (assuming you have a 12-cup brewer).

Make your coffee dollars count:

Get the fine coffee and drinks you deserve along with peace of mind knowing you’re helping to make a small change in the way the world does business. Rest easy knowing that your money supports sustainable and safe growing practices around the world – protecting the land, the wildlife, and the people. We take social responsibility seriously. And knowing all the effort that goes into producing chemical-free coffee, we make sure the quality gets to your cup, with state of the art brewing and highly-trained baristas. We love our coffee, and we think the planet is pretty cool too.

Make your dollars
AND your calories count!

Check out our healthy, whole-grain snacks  and all natural fruit smoothies with no artificial ingredients. There’s no reason that “treating yourself” has to maintain the stigma of being “bad” for you. Treat yourself to something tasty AND good for you.

Work Inside – Look Outside: Lots of Windows at Both Stores

Take advantage of our free Wi-Fi and get caught up on emails, work, reports, random time wasting web surfing – whatever you do on the web. We’re one of the few shops that still serves our drinks in ceramic mugs if you like. If you can remember what it’s like to have a drink without a lid on it…;-)

Since opening in 2000, Z’s Divine Espresso & Coffee Roasters has been the locally owned craft-roasters of fine organic coffees that Lawrence, KS deserves. Z’s knows that Lawrence residents care about their coffee; and rest assured, we do too. Z’s takes coffee seriously, but we spare Lawrence coffee drinkers the needless pretentiousness that seems to abound in the coffee universe. Why can’t coffee be great and fun at the same time?

Z’s maintains an Artisan approach to our coffee beans and our coffee drinks: We still roast coffees in small batches, meticulously fine-tuning the roast to each type of coffee. We only roast coffees that meet our standards of taste, and Z’s remains committed to offering only the freshest coffee beans.

We still pull every shot of espresso, and Z’s hand-makes all our coffee drinks from scratch, as opposed to having a “super-automatic” machine do the work for us. Z’s Divine Baristas are painstakingly trained—to make great coffee drinks and on the art of service.

And Z’s remains devoted to considering—and reducing—our impact on our world and our shared environment.

Make your dollars count. Get the quality-coffee drinks you deserve and peace of mind, knowing you’re helping to make a small change in the way the world does business.