Friday, February 27, 2015

The Best Way to Store Coffee Beans

A frequent question that we get here at the store is, “What’s the best way to store coffee beans?” 


My own personal feelings on this aside (you store it in your mouth, darn it) there are a few simple rules that will keep your fresh-roasted coffee tasting like fresh-roasted coffee, even if it’s been a few days since we’ve actually seen your smiling face.

  • Store it intact. For the absolute best possible coffee experience you’re gonna want to buy it whole bean and grind it only just before you brew it. This isn’t practical for everyone, of course—so you can skip this step if you have to—but it does make a difference! And if you’re
    at the wonderful, early point in a coffee lover’s career when you’ve just begun to realize that this amazing beverage is more than than hot water from a gas station (and more than an afterthought in a cup full of milk foam and sugar) I highly recommend you go ahead and get yourself a good burr grinder.

  •  Store your coffee like you store your spices. Keep your beans in a cool, dry, dark place within easy reach (and within an air-tight container.) The brown paper bag you buy bulk coffee in is for transportation purposes only; long-term exposure to light and air will suck the mojo right out of your java. (P.S. If you bring our brown paper bags back to the store, we’ll give you 50 cents off per pound per bag!)
  • Store larger amounts in the freezer. Ideally you’ll only buy a week’s worth of coffee at a time and won’t need long-term storage, but if you buy in bulk you can put the excess coffee, brown bag and all, in a ziplock bag in the freezer for up to six weeks. Keep a week’s worth of supply in the cabinet for daily use and refill that container with beans from the freezer, rather than going from freezer to grinder (or freezer to cup, if your coffee comes pre-ground.)
  • Don’t store any amount in the fridge. We carry a wide variety of over 90 delicious flavors of coffee, but not one of those is Three-Bean Casserole. We’d like to keep it that way.

Want to make a gift of fresh coffee for someone that doesn’t have a grinder? We use one-way valve bags for our larger (8-oz and 12-oz) coffee gift packages; this is a cool little piece of technology that keeps the stale-ifying oxygen out of the sealed bag but still lets the carbon dioxide escape. Fresh-ground coffee gives off a whole lot of CO2; it either has to sit around, exposed to the air, burping itself out before it can be bagged, or that bag has to have a valve—thus both eliminating the risk of a really nice-smelling explosion and saving the world from a stale cup of joe.

Of all the things you can do to improve your coffee’s flavor keeping it fresh is probably the easiest—you mostly have to remember is that air is the worst thing for it—and once you taste the difference, you won’t go back.

The Private Label Process

Of all our many coffee gift packaging options the private label line is the absolute best-selling.


These are completely custom items, each with unique and original packaging displaying your name and all your company information—and all wrapped around a quality product that will keep customers coming back to you for more. The best part, however, is just how easy it is: we’ll take care of the entire design process and help you figure out an order. It’s usually as quick and easy as this:
  1. You contact us, tell us what kind of private label packaging you’d like and send us your business logo.
  2. We design a label for that packaging and email you a proof.
  3. You approve it and your order is processed; or we make any necessary revisions, you approve it and your order is processed.

Private label coffee packaging from Coffee City USA

For some businesses this simple, quick and convenient turnaround is just what they need, but we offer even more customization options:

  • Choose your own bag colors. A color for every type of coffee, a color for tea, a color for decaf, a color for ground or whole bean; our foil bags are eye-catching and line up neatly on the shelves (and we have even more ideas for displaying 1.5-oz foil bags.)
  • Choose between burlap bag and kraft box samplers. This sampler packaging, along with the design of the custom tag attached to it, can match any decor, from rustic primitive to modern chic.
  • Choose a message, slogan, verse or other content for your labels. Our private label 12-oz packages are a great item for this kind of customization, with a lot of space on the front label that’s perfect for holiday well-wishes or thank-you notes, or anything else you can imagine.
  • Choose your own coffee names. Name them after your business or yourself or your town or the roads and landmarks in it; name them something cute or funny or clever—whatever you want.
  • Choose a look. Are you going for something sleek and professional, or something more homey? Do you want something modern or something with a retro feel? Our private label department will work with you to come up with a great look that ties in with your branding and perfectly fits your business.

We’re eager to show you what we can come up with! Email us your logo today and let us show you an idea or two; we’ll give your packaged coffee a new face—one that looks as great as you.