Does Grinding Your Coffee Matter?

The short answer is yes. The long answer is yeeeeeeeeesss, get a grinder! Here’s why: Do you like the way coffee smells? I imagine most people reading this blog do. Almost every time I see someone considering purchasing a bag of coffee off a retail shelf, they’ll pick up the bag and try to smell the aroma of the beans. And I also imagine most people will want their coffee to taste the way it smells. This is the biggest reason for owning a good coffee grinder.

That smell coming off the coffee are its elements being lost to the air, a process called oxidation. In other words, what you’re smelling is the coffee going stale. Those elements that oxidize won’t show up in your brewed coffee and won’t be tasted by your tongue. Now, grinding coffee into itty bitty particles dramatically accelerates this process, causing a significant loss of material in a mere five minutes! This is part of the reason that aroma-sealed pre-ground coffee doesn’t taste as good as it smells; those elements left the coffee long before they met your grandma’s coffee pot. The other reason for this is the age of the coffee. Oxidation troubles are why roasters like us recommend drinking your coffee within two weeks of its roasted-on date. Even really amazing coffee will taste like bitter wood and sadness six months after it was roasted.

So, back to that customer trying to smell the coffee on the retail shelf; If you want your coffee to taste as good as it smells, get a grinder. Do yourself a favor, and get the most out of your purchase!

~ Written By William "Tony" Peacock