Tweed Colombia Los Naranjos<\/a>. My favorite preparation for this coffee was in the Chemex, so I divided\u00a0the coffee into 44 gram portions and froze it in\u00a0the following ways:<\/p>\nA) In a Ziploc quart-size freezer bag. I didn’t take special care to press air out of the bag.<\/p>\n
B) In a FoodSaver vacuum sealed bag, with all the air removed.<\/p>\n
C) In a glass jar, full to the brim (there was NO room between the top of the coffee and the lid).<\/p>\n
D) In the original bag from Tweed, with as much air pressed out as possible.<\/p>\n
The coffee was roasted on April 27. I\u00a0froze the beans on April 29 and did this experiment on June 23. Each batch was allowed to come to room temperature before grinding (left out at room temperature overnight). All batches of coffee were ground and brewed exactly the same, in my Chemex with 700 grams of 200 degree F water at 4:00 minutes extraction time.<\/p>\n
In all of the samples, there was a very\u00a0impressive amount of bloom when the hot water hit the ground beans, especially considering the beans were two months old. Freezing really did seem to arrest\/slow the aging process.<\/p>\n
A) Ziploc: The whole beans smelled slightly like frozen vegetables, but the brewed coffee was not bad. It was sweet with a rich buttery body. There was the very slightest hint of a funky aftertaste but on the whole it was quite close to fresh.<\/p>\n
B) FoodSaver vacuum bag: Sweet with no funky aftertaste. Honestly, this tasted indistinguishable from fresh to my palate.<\/p>\n
C) Glass jar: This was confounding to me – my initial reaction was that this coffee was more sour than the previous two. However, after the coffee sat for a bit and I tried it again, it smoothed out and I actually enjoyed it more than the previous cups. It had a really creamy mouthfeel.<\/p>\n
D) Original bag: Quite sweet and creamy. A bit more tart than the glass jar sample but I like the liveliness.<\/p>\n
Someone with a more developed palate than mine might be able to taste more flaws, but I don’t think that any of the cups were totally terrible (though I wouldn’t choose to drink the Ziploc\/frozen vegetable coffee again). In fact, I think I would be hard pressed to tell the difference in a blind taste test between most of these four. How do they compare to fresh? I didn’t have a fresh bag of this particular coffee to sample alongside these four cups but I honestly think they compare quite well. The coffee frozen in the FoodSaver bag tasted just as good to me as the coffee I had fresh on April 28.<\/p>\n
I expected there to be much more of a stark difference between the four methods but they all made good cups from coffee that was frozen very shortly (3 days) after roasting. This experiment has proved to me that freezing the coffee won’t necessarily result in a terrible result in the cup if the coffee is fresh upon freezing. I do think that removing as much of the air as possible is a good idea, though.<\/p>\n
My ranking:<\/p>\n
1st place: Tie – Vacuum bag (hot)\/glass jar (after it cooled a little)<\/p>\n
3rd place: original bag with air pressed out<\/p>\n
4th place: Ziploc bag with air left in the bag<\/p>\n
Summary<\/strong>: I still plan to buy and consume fresh coffee as much as possible, but if you are lucky enough to have an abundance of freshly roasted whole bean coffee around and you want to save some for later consumption, freezing it can allow you to enjoy it at a later date without ill-effect. I would freeze the beans in either a vacuum bag or glass jar (full to the brim, so there is as little air as possible in with the beans) in about the quantity I could drink in one week, and thaw as needed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are plenty of coffee snobs that will gasp and avert their eyes from this post. I won’t argue that fresh coffee is best (I don’t think anyone thinks frozen coffee is\u00a0BETTER than fresh), but I wanted to see for myself if freezing whole coffee beans is a terrible idea, or if it is a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":345,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"Do you have a perception that freezing coffee beans will ruin them? LET IT GOOOOOOO!","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[9,114],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/IMG_0954-e1430540374141.jpg","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":561,"url":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/?p=561","url_meta":{"origin":297,"position":0},"title":"Review: Kaladi Brothers Coffee Costa Rica San Pablo (Anchorage, Alaska)","date":"June 15, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"When I visited Seattle, my intention was to pick up as many locally-roasted Pacific Northwest coffees as I could feasibly drink in the next few weeks. This bag of Kaladi Brothers was the sole exception I made, mostly because I didn't think I'd ever get another chance to try coffee\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Central America"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/coffeecantata.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/tn_IMG_1075.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":178,"url":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/?p=178","url_meta":{"origin":297,"position":1},"title":"Some general rules to follow to get GREAT coffee at home","date":"April 13, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Coffee is a daily ritual for many of us, myself included (obviously!). It might surprise some people to know that I typically don't drink very much coffee each day; each morning I'll have 8-12 oz of a brewed coffee or a double espresso if I'm pulling espresso shots. That's about\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Advice"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/coffeecantata.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/IMG_0954-e1430540374141.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":607,"url":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/?p=607","url_meta":{"origin":297,"position":2},"title":"Review: Stumptown Ecuador Cariamanga Organic (Portland, Oregon)","date":"June 22, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"This bag of Stumptown beans was an impulse buy; it ended up being the final bag of coffee beans I purchased while in Seattle. I had never tried beans from Ecuador before but the description on the bag sounded good, and the beans were extremely fresh. Incidentally, almost all of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "AeroPress"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/coffeecantata.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/tn_IMG_1092.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":830,"url":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/?p=830","url_meta":{"origin":297,"position":3},"title":"Review: Coal Creek Coffee Company Burundi Dukorere Ikawa (Laramie, Wyoming)","date":"July 23, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Coal Creek Coffee Company is\u00a0based out of Laramie, WY. I had not heard of this roaster before Alison sent me this bag, but upon visiting their website, I am\u00a0already inclined to like them for a couple of\u00a0reasons. One, they have blends with amusing names like\u00a0Gods Must Be Crazy (which sounds\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Africa"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/coffeecantata.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/tn_IMG_1127.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2156,"url":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/?p=2156","url_meta":{"origin":297,"position":4},"title":"Review: Corvus Coffee Peru Satipo Finca Tasta (Denver, Colorado)","date":"July 12, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"This is the second coffee I've tried from Corvus; the first was their Everyman Espresso, which had nice chocolate and blueberry notes. Thanks to Method Coffee in Dallas for having fresh bags in stock! One thing I noticed last time but didn't mention is that Corvus seems to employ unusually\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "AeroPress"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/coffeecantata.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/tn_IMG_4655.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1600,"url":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/?p=1600","url_meta":{"origin":297,"position":5},"title":"Review: Origen Coffee Roasters Mexico Oaxaca Sierra Mixteca Organic (Escondido, California)","date":"October 26, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The next two coffee reviews come from bags courtesy of my good friend Erin, who apparently sweet-talked the roaster into roasting this order on an off day just for me. :) Origen is a San Diego-area based artisan roaster who sells coffee both online and at the North San Diego\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "North America"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/coffeecantata.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/tn_IMG_1747.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5QIia-4N","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=297"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2131,"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297\/revisions\/2131"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}