Coffee Roast Dates and How They Affect Taste

When was this coffee roasted? Are these beans fresh? When is the actual best time to drink coffee past the roast date? We’re faced with these question at the BonLife cafe quite often, so we’re breaking it down today on the blog!

If you are one of many specialty coffee drinkers who have ever wondered what that roast date on your coffee means or if it even changes the taste of the coffee, this post is for you! We know this is a subject that raises much concern among coffee drinkers, so we thought we’d talk about it on the blog again.

Picture this: you’ve wandered into a specialty coffee shop somewhere new. Perhaps you’re traveling in a new city. It’s a very busy cafe. There is a shelf stocked full of amazing beans from different origins. You start to browse. The beans all have different roast dates. The staff is friendly, but they’re so busy helping customers. You don’t want to interrupt them. But you don’t know which beans to choose because of the differing roast dates. Are the older ones stale? Are the newer ones best? What do you do?!

We’ll tell you what to do! This post will give you the tools to choose whether or not a coffee is at the right date for your needs. You’ll be able to march right into that cafe and confidently choose next time.

There’s a lot that goes into the coffee roasting process… we talk all about it in this blog post. But what’s important for us to note today is that the roasting process isn’t finished the moment the beans are dropped from the roaster. There’s another step called degassing. This step occurs after the beans are roasted, bagged, and sitting on that shelf; and it’s crucial to how a coffee tastes.

Degassing starts the moment after the beans are roasted and can last for about two weeks! During the roasting process, the coffee undergoes chemical reactions, causing gas, like carbon dioxide, to build up inside the beans. All of the gas doesn’t escape the beans during the roasting process. It slowly starts to release from the beans in those days following the roast.

Why is this relevant to us drinking the coffee? Because during the off-gas process, the beans don’t show their full range of flavor. The still-trapped gasses mute the flavors of the coffee: they actually block the hot water from fully extracting flavor from the grounds. Too-fresh coffee can taste flat or even vegetal. Once the gasses are gone, you’ll get an even extraction and the full range of flavor in your coffee!

This is why super-fresh coffee is not the best! If those beans were roasted yesterday, put them down! Give them time to finish their roasting process by degassing. You’ll get so much more flavor from them in a week or two.

The best estimate for when beans will taste great is two weeks past the roast date. But there is a range, and each coffee has its own sweet spot. So, about 10-21 days past the roast date is when a coffee will give you the most flavorful cup! We know this may seem like a broad range of days, but you really will get a lot of flavor out of your coffee during that range. Yes, coffee does lose flavor as it continues to age, but it takes longer than a lot of people think.

You can also plan ahead if you’re buying coffee in advance. If it was roasted yesterday, but you still have beans at home, go ahead and buy the fresh beans! Give time to off-gas at home, so they’ll be at the perfect date once you’re ready to drink them. If you’re headed home to brew the coffee right away, look for something that is about two weeks past the roast date. It’s going to be so much more flavorful than something roasted yesterday!

Now that we busted the myth of super-fresh coffee, you’ll have the power to march into a coffee shop and select the beans that are perfect for your needs!