Freshness

Turku being the most award-winning coffee town in Finland I and Niki decided to stay there for a while after the Young Entreprise -final (which we didn’t unfortunately win) and pay a visit to Café Art, the home for three Finnish barista champions. Joona Suominen, the reigning barista champion, kindly offered us a place to crash. After a few shots of Daterra Sweet Collection (roasted by Turun kahvipaahtimo that also roasts for Art) brewed with Joona’s Expobar it was time to head to work to play with the big guy, La Marzocco GB/5.

Pretty decent combo

The main topic of this post awoke while drinking espresso at Art. Nice acid, sweetness and good balance but something was disturbing me. Was the shot over-exctracted? Was there channeling in the puck or was the water too hot? What caused that slightly bitter, wild and ‘greenish’ taste? It didn’t take too long to figure it out. The freshness – espresso was roasted four days ago.

We had a chat with Mikko, twice-winning barista champion, about freshness. He told me that he prefers coffee really fresh, about 4-7 days from the roast. He also said that he likes the ‘green’ aromas combined with characteristic aromas of particular coffee. I like to drink mine about 10-14 days after roasting. There’s a quite large difference there, coffee changes its character a lot in 10 days. Ulrika, who’s been working with speciality coffee for almost 15 years, is quite the opposite. She says that she only drinks coffee older than two weeks, otherwise the ‘green’ taste over-powers the more subtle notes. I agree with her – although I do prefer fresh over stale.

Mikko has been working with and drinking fresh coffee considerably longer than I have and prefers his coffee really fresh. I’ve noticed that my tastebuds are becoming more and more familiar with the green taste of fresh coffee and I’ve started drinking ‘younger’ coffee over last six months. What I’m wondering here is that does one go for fresher and fresher over the time. Will I be drinking coffee roasted less than a week ago in the next six months time? How much does the coffee itself affect the ‘green’ taste and what’s the role of roasting degree? I’d love to hear your comments here – how old do you prefer your coffee, have you gone for fresher over the time etc.