This site claims most coffee beans sold are stale by the time they get to the consumer. Is this true? Does coffee need to be fresh from the roaster to be at it’s best? I grind my roasted beans at hime and use a french drip cone filter with a hazlenut flavored supermarket blend of roasted (bagged) beans I am fond of. Are fresh roasted beans really that much more of transcendent experience vs roasted coffee beans from a sealed bag?
Costco roasts their own coffee, and I can’t tell the difference between it and Millstone from the grocery store. I do prefer freshly ground. I can taste that difference, but either I don’t have that sophisticated palate, or there’s little or no difference between fresh and old roast. IMHO
Generally, if it’s in the supermarket, it’s stale. Coffee shops don’t always do a good job of keeping it fresh either. I’ve had really good, fresh coffee only a few times. It’s not half as acidic as the supermarket stuff.
This was while I was in Hawaii, and God it was good. Even the Kona that you import or buy isn’t as good as it is fresh. If you buy it from a coffee shop, chances are that they cut it with other coffee to maximize the profit.
When it comes to regular old java though, Waffle House serves excellent coffee. It certainly beats the crap out of everyone else.
You know, back in the days before motorlorries, aereoplanes and steamships, coffeebeans had to make their way to New York and Europe by way of sailing vessels. It took a while for beans to get to their destination, but people liked them so much that they invented expresso and latte and mocha and turkish coffee, and all the other forms of the beverage that we enjoy today. Fresh beans may make some of these beverages taste a little different, but who is to say that they taste better?
It’s all a CROCK!
After a hard dirty days work runnin’ a ‘dozer’ in a spike camp, a cuppa made in a tin can, with some day old canteen water and a handful of grounds thrown in is REAL offee.
None of that stuff about —fresh ground,—grounds to cup ratio,—exact temperature of the COLD water to start with----and the whole thing is made over a sagebrush fire.
Like the sage fire it’s hotter’n the hinges on hell’s doors -and you have it in another can for a cup------too hot to knock back but fine for blowin’ ‘n’ sippin’.
Now THAT’s coffee! -------and anything else is a shoddy imitation.
Uh course if your a city slicker you prolly get your Joe at some ‘spresso’ joint.
Hoooey!
EZ
But the beans were probably shipped green as they are today to the “gourmet” vendors. It’s the time between roasting and drinking we are concerning ourselves with. Peet’s claims:
How much is really true, and how much is hype is a matter of opinion, but the start of a Peet’s dark roast bag, when the beans are still glistening with oil is definitely better.
I’d say that the quality of the beans matters more than how 'fresh" the stuff is. A bad quality bean (like many of your more inexpensive coffees use), is going to taste like crap, no matter what you do to it.
Ezstrete, nah when us slicker-types want a real cup of coffee, we fire up the old oxy-acetelyne torch! 
Hey Tuckerfan—Ah kin see yure a man t’ride the river with—jes don’ gi
er 2 much uh that there oxeegen!
EZ