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Recently I wrote an article for the Napa Valley Register ( here), describing key factors that can ruin your morning coffee. In it, I should have put a finer point on this: Life Is Short. If you are a daily, moderate coffee drinker enjoying a couple of cups per day (assuming you start much later than I did at 20 years old) and live out the average US life expectancy of 78.69 years, you can expect to spend over 16,000 hours with a cup of joe in your hand. As a Gen-Xer who is starting to nudge a little too close to the big 5-0 for comfort, 78.69 years is starting to seem like a blink of the eye. But 16,000 hours--that’s an eternity to do something that isn’t enchantingly awesome.
So let’s make 2019 the year you stop drinking coffee that isn’t just that. A coffee resolution, if you will. There are lots of ways to get to enchantingly awesome coffee, but they all start with the same foundation: fresh, high quality beans.
Here’s the ugly truth: the vast majority of coffee that Americans drink is pretty nasty swill. It’s made from lower quality, commoditized beans that have likely staled as green beans waiting to be roasted, then again as roasted beans on the store shelf, before ending up in a less-than-ideal brewing setup, to be turned into a brownish liquid that is nowhere near the experience that the noble Coffea arabica bean is capable of delivering.
Step 1: stop buying any beans that don’t have a roast date indicated, or that are older than 2-4 weeks from roast. Fresh-roasted beans will actually improve in flavor over the first week or so after roast, before starting to decline over the next few weeks. And watch out for “Best By” dates, because many roasters will use anywhere from 3-6 months off-roast for these.
Step 2: buy smaller quantities of beans, more frequently. Many roasters gas their bags, which helps preserve freshness, but as soon as the bag is opened and the beans touch oxygen, they begin to quickly show their true age. So the 5lb bags at the big-box retailer are not a pathway to better coffee experiences. Buy a 1-2 week supply at a time instead, and you’ll be well on your way to a very achievable 2019 resolution.
Ohm offers coffee subscriptions for many reasons, first and foremost freshness. Our subscribers select a delivery interval and subscribe to a single blend, or our “Rollin’ Stone” rotating subscription. We roast weekly (typically Mondays) and ship so that beans arrive to our subscribers within 24-72 hours of roast.
Subscribe. Here’s a resolution-friendly offer: free shipping on your first 12 shipments, using code 2019RESOLUTION. Offer good through Jan 31, 2019. Cancel anytime. Also makes a great prepaid gift for any number of shipments that fits your budget.
- Derek