"Now to Bean - Whats important is to like the bean you are using. Cause there are soooooo many different ones. There is no right or wrong with region or organic or fair trade. What it comes down to is quality. If your ethics are swayed toward making specific choices, so be it. But make sure the quality is there. OK, from a proffessional point of view, freshness is vital. 72 hours - 10 days after roasting is the optimum window of perfection. Some say its smaller, some wider. But this is a good range to aim for. Anything over 14 days really shouldn't be put through any bean lovers machine. But for the less concerned, its up to you how bad you like your coffee to taste." OK, time to get the flame-thrower out.....it's such a hot day down here in Melbourne. Time and time again I get very annoyed with guidelines plastered all over the internet stating beans need to be used within 10 days. As a roaster who constantly tests the product 4+ times a day, 7 days a week using any number of various control samples ranging from 4 days to 45 days old, the 10 - 14 day rule is simply not true and in fact is highly misleading. It has the side-effect of driving customers to aggressively seek beans that are too fresh and adding at least another 2 completely unnecessary variables into the mix that work against consistency. There are beans and blends that can throw absolute you the worst set of WOBBLES imaginable around day 9 - 11 only to come good again from day 12 and work exceptionally well up to day 40+. I'm not talking here about the sort of bubbly, gassy extractions that people generally refer to with fresh beans, I'm talking about TASTE, FLAVOR and BALANCE which are the most important aspects in the cup. It comes down to how the bean(s) are roasted as to the expected peak usage window - this will rarely be fully understood (even by some roasters). As for quality - how is this measured and what sort of index should be used ? - price, brand reputation, attractive packaging, elaborate over the top descriptions, freshness, marketing, etc. Only the roaster understand the quality metric and in general this is rarely espoused in any terms the consumer can understand as it generally needs a "marketing" filter. Quality = what you produce in the cup and when you can do this repeatedly within the smallest of variations. Suggest segmenting rules around bean quality 1. I believe there are subtle differences between home and commercially roasted beans - for commercial roasted beans use from day 9 through 45. Look for suppliers who put roast dates on packs and disregard any UB/BB dates. 2. Quality metric - literally impossible to categorize. Any roaster can have good and bad days as well as good and bad (green) beans. Only you can judge the quality of a bean by how it cups. My advice is to develop a relationship with one or many roasters - speak to the person ACTUALLY roasting and cupping the coffee - ask them what they like at the moment and only then will you know you are getting QUALITY.
