The question has a catch. Whole bean coffee doesn't "expire": it fades. There's no day on which it stops being drinkable, there's a slope down which it loses what you paid for — first the high aromatics, then the sweetness, and at the end all that's left is body and a dry note of cardboard.
- What matters is the roast date, not the best-before.
- The sweet spot: between 7 and 30 days from roasting.
- An open bag holds up well for three or four weeks.
- Ground, half the aromatics are gone in fifteen minutes.
The three clocks running on coffee
There isn't one countdown, there are three running at once, and mixing them up is what leads to buying badly.
The good window
Between those three clocks there's a window, and it's wider than the purists say and much shorter than the supermarket suggests.
For espresso the window opens slightly later — CO₂ is more of a problem under nine bars — and for filter you can go in earlier. But day to day, that one-to-four-week range is the one that matters.
Stale coffee doesn't smell bad. It smells of very little. Which is why almost nobody notices they've been drinking old coffee for months.
Why the date on the bag is almost never any use
The law requires a best-before date, and for coffee it's usually set at twelve to twenty-four months. That's a food safety date: at eighteen months that coffee still won't do you any harm. But in flavour terms it's been dead for over a year.
What actually tells you something is the roast date. If a bag only carries a best-before, that's not an oversight: it's that nobody wants you to know when it was roasted. Ours is printed on the bag, and that's why we roast by the week instead of stacking pallets.
How much to buy at a time
The commonest mistake isn't storing it badly, it's buying too much. If you make two coffees a day you get through around 250 grams every two and a half weeks; a kilo bag will last you two and a half months, and the last third won't taste the same.
| Coffees a day | Weekly use | Size that suits |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | ≈ 50 g | 250 g every five weeks |
| 2 | ≈ 100 g | 250 g every two and a half weeks |
| 4 | ≈ 200 g | 250 g every week and a half, or two bags a month |
| More than 6 | ≈ 300 g or more | Fortnightly subscription |
How to keep it at home
Quick questions
What about freezing it?
How do I know if mine has gone?
Does decaf last as long?
Can I still use it if it's been open a year?
We roast by the week and the date is printed on the bag. It isn't marketing: it's the only figure that tells you what you're buying.
Tasting Pack · €40.10 Club Microlotes · €17.90/month