coffeehorse wrote:
I think holding greens from last year's crop on purpose is not a great idea unless you're doing it for a very specific reason. 6 months and you certainly lose a couple of points in Cup Quality (CQ).
I'm not sure I agree completely with the 6 month guideline and losing CQ points. It comes down to individual bean character, how it is stored, etc. Whilst many can't access moisture meters to track and manage green bean condition, I will state that some greens can actually improve over a 6 month period. Why this is the case I'm not sure and it's quite difficult to trace backward to investigate whether is was due to early, mid or late harvest, processing schedule (accelerated or delayed) or in fact any other factors we don't entirely know of that may cause this situation - such as storage in ports and transport conditions. What I do know is that some beans, particularly when they are very fresh (wet-hulled Sumatrans in particular and even some Brazils we recently received literally within 2 months from processing) are particularly unstable in the first 3-4 months upon arriving (this being up to 5 odd months from crop). It's the reason some quality estates can actually store their processed beans in wooden vats for 3-4 months prior to shipment to ensure stability. Ipanema and Monte Alegre are examples of leading farms using this practice. I found a couple of bags from 12 months ago stashed under other bags. After roasting these for a customer, my control samples were some of the best coffee I've tasted in a while and far superior to what we were pulling from the current crop (same origin, varietal, farm/co-op) in a back-to-back test. What this tells me is age can be less of a factor compared to original bean quality and roast performance.
