Cold and Coffee

[plonq]

I've spent much of the winter hunkered down in the house, avoiding cold weather and people. atara has been going to work every day, sharing a workplace with walking germ factories.

So how is it that I am the one who ended up with a nasty cold?

I am on the mend today - to the point where I can almost taste my coffee this morning. Fortunately, this cold was comparatively benign in that it hit me pretty hard in the head, but only gave my chest a quick brush on its way out, rather than taking up residence there for the next couple of weeks.

On the subject of coffee, James Hoffman posted a new video the other day where he took two identical bags of coffee and put them in controlled environments. He kept one bag in a cool, dry place. On the other hand, he purposely added humidity to the second bag using a packet that is designed to maintain the moisture level in a humidor. After a month, he made identical V60 brews with coffee from each group.

The coffee that he had kept humid produced no bloom when he brewed it (that's the foam you get when ground coffee releases trapped carbon dioxide - a by-product of roasting). The other difference was the everybody - including himself - preferred the coffee that he'd kept humid.

This flies in the face of conventional wisdom. He is going to put them back into storage for another month and brew more coffee then to see if the trend continues, or if storing it dry wins out in the longer term. I'll have to tune in again next month to see how that turns out.

While I find the results to be very interesting, I don't foresee going out to buy a humidor for my coffee any time soon. I don't keep coffee beans around long enough for that.

Comments

[frith]

You specified beans in your last sentence. In the humid vs cool/dry experiment, the coffee was stored as beans (not ground) as well?

[plonq]

Ah - you know, when I first started writing this post, there was this little nattering voice in the back of my mind going, "Don't forget to mention that it's whole beans and not ground coffee."

Since I hate the voices in my head as much as they hate me, I ignored it.

Anyway, it was whole beans in all cases.

Seriously - a true aficionado grinds each bean individually to maintain the highest quality control.

Inner Smeagol

[frith]

I am a coffee Luddite. My criteria is ease of use (ergo, pre-ground) and supports the "Rainforest Alliance". 'Made in Canada' cements the deal. So, I do not drink great coffee. But I was interested in the experiment since I store my opened coffee in the freezer under the pretense that it will preserve that magical 'fresh ground flavor' longer.