It may be controversial, but we’re going to debunk a myth. It’ll prove divisive. Some of you won’t believe us. But gosh-darn-it we owe it to you, your coffee and our own sense of self-worth to get stuck in on the notion that coffee should not be stored in your fridge or freezer. Here’s how it all started…
Recently…
…we put the question out to our community. We wanted to know where your coffee lived - meaning the nook you’ve allocated for it at home. We got some pretty excellent responses, but in among the answers a few mentioned that they keep their coffee in the fridge.
Far be it from us to be coffee bossy-boots, but a few of the hardcore coffee geeks at Pact HQ compelled us to intervene.
In a nutshell.
The thing is, coffee has a bit of a love and hate relationship with moisture - coffee attracts moisture, but moisture is very bad for your coffee. The problem isn’t that there’s moisture in your fridge (or freezer), it’s the change in temperature the coffee experiences going into and out of the fridge, which results in a build-up condensation. This is the moisture that the coffee hates so much and that can diminish the flavour.
Where did the fridge thing come from?
To be honest we have no idea. It’s kind of intuitive to think that fridges and freezers are designed to keep stuff fresh. So perhaps that’s how the idea that a fridge is the best place for your coffee spawned in the first place.
Treating your coffee right.
When it comes to storing coffee, the main things to protect it from are excessive air, moisture, heat and light (in that order). All these things are just desperate to suck that fresh-roasted flavour from your precious coffee grounds.
The best place to preserve those marvellous flavours is actually in your Pact Coffee bag itself. We’ve carefully chosen the bag to fit these requirements perfectly.
Our Head of Coffee, Will says, “We’re constantly testing our packaging to make sure it keeps coffee perfectly fresh. There have been multiple iterations of the Pact Coffee bags you receive today, they are always evolving and getting better.”
Not content with keeping it in the bag? The next best place to preserve those marvellous flavours is an air-tight container, in a cool dark place. But any air-tight container will do, of course! A little tip is to choose a cupboard away from hot ovens and steamy kettles, which will tend to make your cool dark place a lot less cool.
So there we have it. As with all things coffee we’re happy to enter into a debate (that’s kind of what we do for most of the day at Pact HQ anyway), so do feel free to comment below. We hope you don’t mind us giving you our two cents!
