Freshly ground coffee - an important criterion for aromatic coffee
Maybe you've also wondered why your coffee doesn't taste as flavorful - even flat - after a while? If you have ground coffee at home so far, you will have noticed that the aroma dissipates after a while. For the perfect coffee moment at home, freshly ground coffee is a simple but very important step: because the less time that passes between grinding the coffee beans and making your cup of coffee, the more flavors and aromas are retained in your coffee powder. And these typical coffee aromas are ultimately what we want to enjoy in our coffee cup.
Fresh Coffee
For us, fresh coffee is not just freshly roasted, but starts with the harvest of the green coffee. At 19grams, we work according to the seasonal concept. This means that our assortment is based on the harvest times of the coffee beans in the growing regions of our partners. We only bring freshly harvested green coffees to Berlin and thus try to provide a diverse range of coffee from different growing regions of the world. We roast fresh once a week in our roastery in Berlin and pack all coffees immediately. Thus, we can guarantee that only freshly roasted beans are in our coffee bags. But the roasting process is only one aspect: If you want to taste the pure and full aroma of your coffee at home, you should grind your coffee beans just before preparing your coffee. But let's take a step back and look at what happens to the coffee beans during the roasting process: In the roasting machine, the coffee beans are heated up to 230°C (measured by the internal bean temperature).
The heat input causes a variety of chemical reactions to take place inside the beans: Water evaporates, sugars caramelize, and new protein chains are formed. Here, up to 1200 new aroma compounds are created, which, in a complex interaction, rise to our noses as the typical coffee aroma. If you've ever brewed fresh coffee, you've probably noticed that it shouldn't be too fresh either, because then the result in the cup isn't fruity and sweet, but tastes a bit burnt. Coffee beans need some time after they are roasted to develop their flavor profile along with the roasted aromas. When freshly roasted, the coffee also still has a lot of acids. We find it tastes best and most aromatic after about a week to 12 days. The best time to prepare it is between 14 days and two months. The lighter a coffee has been roasted, the more time it needs to rest and develop its flavor profile. After that, the taste gradually balances itself out. After about 3-4 months, coffee is usually extremely balanced.
Freshly ground coffee - grinding directly before preparation
The aromas and flavors found in roasted coffee beans only fully develop when the beans are ground. Grinding breaks open the cells in the beans and allows the aromas, coffee oils and other ingredients to escape. Surely you can well remember the intense smell of freshly ground coffee! However, this explosion of aroma and smell is unfortunately short-lived, because the ingredients evaporate as soon as they come into contact with oxygen and light.
Therefore, the shorter the time between grinding and coffee preparation, the more aromas and flavors remain in your coffee powder and can be extracted by the water during the brewing process. And you can taste them later directly in your cup. So if you want to exploit the full and unadulterated flavor potential of your coffee, the time between the grinding process and the preparation of the coffee should be as short as possible. The best way to do this is to buy your coffee as whole beans and grind them fresh just before brewing.
Filter coffee and your hand grinder
And here's another trick for grinding: When grinding, move both arms, not just the one you use to turn the lever - this way you grind your coffee easily and evenly. This is important later for an even extraction.
