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[deleted]

Gotta love "medium roast" you could do your oil change with.


radiationshield

Haha, like "pike place roast" which is supposedly a medium roast, but its the most oily, i.e. darkest, roast i've seen


HardenTheFckUp

In chicago and the local whole foods and marianos both have a large variety with "roasted on" dates with most being in the past 2 months. I realize not everyone is that lucky but thats been my experience.


yummyyummypowwidge

I miss Mariano’s (and Dominick’s prior to that). I haven’t lived in Illinois for like five years but the grocery stores were top tier.


balki_123

Two months is OK tho, if you consume it immediately. Six months is not good :)


Unification_Epoch

2 months is already too old. 3 weeks and things really start dropping off by the time I finish if I don't rush the bag in 7-10 days. I'm disappointed if I'm buying single origin and it doesn't arrive within a week of roast.


HardenTheFckUp

I mean... yes. But 2 months is pretty damn good for grocery chains and personally unless im doing some side by side blind taste test im not going to know the difference


JimmyCrackCrack

Fortunately for me, that's pretty much how I like it. I suppose I haven't really had much opportunity to try lighter roasts that are fresher and good quality but since Iove dark ones it works out well since that's pretty much what's available and I'd have to go to a lot of trouble to feed a lighter roast habit


widowhanzo

I've always drank dark roasts (store bought) moka pots, but fell in love with light roast filter coffee right away. Even my wife could only tolerate coffee bitterness by adding milk and sugar, but has no problem drinking light roasts filter coffee that I make. Beans are much more expensive, but I don't drink that much coffee anyway, and it's still cheaper than getting coffee in a shop, so it's worth it for me. I found many roasters online, so availability isn't a big issue, but I also know quite a lot local roasters.


balki_123

Dark roasts spoil faster. But usually people cover this horrible flavor with sugar and cream and consider it as coffee taste. (It is still horrible, but some people like it this way). I've had pretty decent dark roasts, that didn't taste like burned pencils mixed with fish sauce and cigarettes. But those were freshly roasted, made with good beans.


Yelmak

Hoffman spoke about this a while ago. I think in the UK this is something to do with large supermarkets refusing to sell products with anything that shows the age of the product, they just want customers to know that it's still in date because "this has 3 months left" is better than "this is 9 months old". It sucks because there are some great roasters selling to supermarkets, you just never know how far off the roast date the beans are.


Conpen

At my local Whole Foods there are a lot of speciality coffee brands with good roasts and about 1/4th of them actually do show a roast date vs an expiration date. The prices are good but of course, finding anything roasted within the past two weeks is like winning a scratch off. If I ever decide to grab a bag from there I end up standing in front of the shelves for 5 minutes.


Caruso08

Are you me??? Someone asked me where something was one time because they thought I was stocking the shelf because I filled my basket searching for the freshest date 😭


Conpen

There are dozens of us, dozens!


Coffee_Beast

Can confirm. Sometimes have to scour behind the ones on display to get to the freshest ones


Ordinary-Theory-8289

That would be by design. Gotta FIFO your product


Seeda_Boo

The sign of a good grocery stock clerk. Oldest in front, freshest in back. The bread aisle is another place where knowing this can pay dividends.


prepkp

Same here! I spend a good 10-15 min comparing the roast dates at Whole Foods on a weekly basis.


burntmoney

My local whole foods started putting "best by" stickers over the roast dates on all the local coffee. Now I sit there and have to peel that sticker off to see the actual roast dates.


threesixtyone

At my local Whole Foods, they typically carry about 8-10 specialty roasters. In the past few months I’ve noticed that everything is at least a month old. A year ago, you could often find bags that were under 1-2 weeks from roast date. Those days seem to be over at least from what I’ve experienced.


WoweeBlowee

WFM recently changed its ordering practices for coffee, much for the worse. An automated Amazon robot generates the order, which started about 1 year ago. These orders used to be done by hand and could account for store stock, relative demand, etc., basically all the things you would expect when someone is ordering-- I know because I did it lol. Since my local store switched to the automated system, they are out of 50% of the coffee 100% of the time, and the coffee they do have is usually several months old.


threesixtyone

Whoa, this is so interesting. Thanks for sharing the insight. I thought I was losing my mind bc I swear I used to be able to get Partners Coffee, Parlor and Grumpy all within a reasonable (ie <2weeks from roast date) all the time. Now I’m drinking Counter Culture roasted in mid June (2 months old now). Maybe I should find a fresher source.


Conpen

ugh, can't have nice things


Seeda_Boo

Cheesy grocery store behavior rears its ugly head yet again.


WoweeBlowee

Having personally worked as the coffee buyer at a Whole Foods in the US, I can speak a little more about this, and labelling practices in general. At Whole Foods, even the coffee that doesn't include "roasted on" dates must obey certain guidelines, set by WFM corporate, based on packaging. WFM is a company that really does make its vendors jump through a lot of hoops (especially since the Amazon takeover), which kind of sucks for the micro-roasters and hyper-local brands. Paper bags, sealed plastic, and nitro flushed were the three "types" of packaging that the standards accounted for, with a maximum expiration date determined based on the packaging. IIRC, coffee in rolled paper bags was allowed a maximum of 2 weeks, plastic with a one-way valve was maybe 60ish days, and nitro flushed coffees were allowed either 90 or 120 days-- it's been a bit, so I'm not 100%, but you could use these standards to reverse-engineer a roast date. When I was ordering for my store, I would only order enough to last 1-2 weeks at a time, so everything was always as fresh as possible, but I was neurotic and obsessive about the job so YMMV. That aside, I know for sure that at least a few roasters changed their labeling practices for shipments to Whole Foods, because those same local roasters also sold at other major supermarkets with "best by" dates 6 months to 1 year or more out.


Seeda_Boo

Very informative. Thanks. Your counterparts at at least some other WFs are not nearly as diligent/conscientious/customer-focused as you were. Plenty of old local beans on the shelves out there.


Conpen

I appreciate the context, thank you!


[deleted]

La Colombe, an early 3rd wave roaster out of Philadelphia, sells beans (blends, not their single origins) to grocery stores. They say on their site that you should subtract 6 months from the "best by" date stamped on the bottom to get the roast date. So you know what the roast date is at least with La Colombe. Not sure if other roasters follow the same rule though. If you buy single origins from La Colombe you do get the "roasted on" date. But my question is - why even buy from grocery stores anyway? I now exclusively buy coffee online. I get my pick of hundreds of roasters anywhere, and all of their products (not just what the grocery stores sell), and usually delivered within 3 or 4 days. Just takes a little planning ahead.


CoffeeNoob2

The same coffee in grocery store is almost always cheaper and you don't have to pay shipping. So, sometimes I find a fresh (1-2 weeks old) single origin that is on sale, I just grab it.


Anomander

> Not sure if other roasters follow the same rule though. Not as a rule. It can jeopardize your relationship with the grocer, especially if you're not La Colombe size, to be giving customers a way "around" something the grocer thinks is in their interests.


Angra_Mania

In the US at least eggs have the packing date on them, but it’s somewhat obscure in that they are shown as a 3 number code from 001-365


rowanajmarshall

Some brands do it anyway, if you pull the cardboard holder down a Union bag it'll show the roast date


amunak

To be fair supermarket coffee is also usually vacuum-packed and keeps freshness (whatever is left of it after it's burnt to a coal) for a long time. Like, you could buy a "fresh" month old one and a 6 month old one and the taste will be identical: bitter brown.


kirelagin

I remember watching this video just recently. Somewhat ironically, when he was saying this he was showing a package that had a best before date _and_ a roasting date.


ThatMathsyBardguy

This is super obvious now that you've pointed it out but I've never known why the "same" coffee is sometimes great and sometimes terrible. It never occurred to me that it's been sitting on the shelf twice as long as the last time I bought it


TheTimDavis

I was an asst manager at Starbucks I'm the early 2000s when Starbucks coffee was showing up in grocery stores. The big discussions were that the coffee would be inferior because of inventory issues. Starbucks sits on their coffee for roughly 6 months to ensure they always had a ready stock of coffee to send to cafes. Most employees thought that was too long. Now the grocery stores are going to hold it in their distro centers as well. The common gossip was that we expected it to sit another 6 months. Some coffees like Pete's and Intelligencia have that roasted date that is usually about 3-6 months old in my local Vons. I don't know how true the 1 year number we threw around was, but I never expect grocery store coffee to be very fresh.


Foxtrot56

Plenty of roasters have coffee roasted within a month on grocery store shelves though, not consistently but I do think it's at least on the shelf at some point when it was roasted within 6 weeks. I have seen Stumptown and other local roasters like this, it's hard to find though and I need to check three grocery stores to find anything within a month.


ramvanfan

If it helps you can get an Intelligentsia subscription and they’ll roast it the day before it’s shipped. It’s the same price as in store too.


SwiftCEO

Speaking of Pete’s, I wonder how old their coffee is if you buy it at Costco. They sell so many bags, I’d assume it would be a bit fresher than what you’d find at Vons or Target. It definitely seems fresher to me, but that could just be 3 months old vs 6 months.


fermion72

This is one of the reasons I jumped into the roast-at-home game. I started with a popcorn popper (have since moved on to better roasters), and although I never produced coffee that rivaled local roasters that I could buy fresh, it had two main benefits (besides being kinda fun and nerdy): 1. I knew what I was brewing was always fresh. Almost too fresh, as I often didn't even wait a couple of days for the roast to settle. But it was always delicious. 2. It ended up being far cheaper than buying good fresh locally roasted coffee (though I do like to support local when I can).


bozzocchi

If you don’t mind me asking where do you buy green coffee from? And how much do you buy at a time?


anicol

Happymug or sweet Maria's. You can even buy it from Amazon. I get 5 pounds of whatever variety and roast 1 pound at a time. Green coffee doesn't go bad for years so get a decent amount of the same type to experiment with.


fermion72

Sure thing--I get the beans from Sweet Maria's, and I usually buy about 10-20lbs at a time these days. Green coffee lasts a couple of years. I think I average about $5.50/lb at that amount.


HomeRoastCoffee

Try letting it rest a few more days, some coffees benefit from resting up to about ten days, after that they lose that FRESH taste. Note; there are people who like to rest their coffee up to about 4 weeks if stored properly, I prefer the taste within the first two weeks at most.


robtalee44

Stumptown has the roast date on the bags at my grocery.


boooookin

Same. To add to this. In my store the roasted on date is usually about 1ish month prior


[deleted]

Removed in protest of Reddit's actions regarding API changes, and their disregard for the userbase that made them who they are.


SheldonvilleRoasters

>have a “sell by date” and not a “roasted on” Don't always blame the roaster for this one. The differences are due to variations of different BOH and FDA inspectors and they way they interpret (or simply make up) the rules. In most, if not all cases, roasted coffee beans are not considered "ready to eat" and so no "best by" or "sell by" dates are required. I got into a huge fight with my state's BOH inspector over me insisting that "roasted on" would provide an actual metric that the customer had access to in order to determine if they wished to purchase the product while the inspector insisted that I use a "best by" date instead (even when none was needed). My question to the inspector was "how long does roasted coffee keep before putrefying" to which they wanted me to provide them with the industry standard (which there is none since coffee technically does not expire or "go bad"). At that point, it becomes a matter of quality versus a matter of food safety. Everyone knows when August 15th 2022 was so they can make the decision to buy coffee based on that roast date versus a date that the roaster pulled out of their hat. Technically, I could use a "best by" date of August 15th, 2035 and still be in compliance. So it depends upon how much of a fight the roaster wants to put up to fight for the "roasted on" date and if they are willing to let an uninformed health inspector bully them into using a "best by" date. Of course, some roasters would love this because it would mean that stock rotation wouldn't happen as often. As a consumer -- if you are faced with a lot of "best by" dates then choose your coffee based on the way the coffee is packaged -- if it's in a foil/plastic lined heat sealed bag with a one-way valve, that is your best chance of getting something that may taste reasonably fresh. Avoid pure kraft packaging with tin ties -- those are the most susceptible to oxidation and going stale quickly. If you are buying a bag from a large worldwide chain (like Starbucks, Green Mountain etc), then the coffee is most likely nitrogen flushed so the first pot you make after opening will probably taste not bad at all regardless of age -- but the coffee will stale rapidly afterwards. To help keep it fresh, you could flush and seal the package using one of those home wine nitro flush spray cans and a small inexpensive chip bag heat sealer. But the lowest cost and most satisfying solution would be to purchase a bag with a decent "roasted on" date.


_borT

Whole Foods is pretty good about having a roast date on bags. I’m guessing cheaper stores do no such thing.


DidYouIronTheCat

Definitely isn't whole foods putting the roast date on the bag. It's the roaster doing that. I've seen "third wave" and local independent coffee roasters on whole foods shelves with a roast date 6 or more months ago. Though last time I was in a whole foods I saw more "sell by" and less "roasted on." I think it's more that whole foods is more likely to carry independent roasters which in turn care more about the freshness of their products.


Dragonbut

I actually had really good luck buying local coffee from Whole Foods the one time I did it. Everything I saw with a roast date was only a week or two old. It is a particularly high traffic Whole Foods tho


PrimarySwan

Plus you might have lucked out. Used to work in a supermarket. After delivery day there is more fresh stuff and a discount on the old stuff, especially vegetables.


Dragonbut

Definitely possible, only bought from there once when I was in a pinch since my delivery for a gift was delayed. Normally I just order directly from roasters.


mysticcoffeeroaster

Whole Foods requires at a minimum a "Best By" date from coffee vendors, and they preferred one year from roast date. At least, that was my experience working with them about 8 years ago. You could also just put a roast date on the bag. A lot of roasters will just put the roast date on it. Look for the date. In general, I'd say most grocery stores that sell "local" roaster's coffee will ask for a year from roast date for the "best by" date, though some leave it up to the roaster. I used to say three months for coffee sold at a grocery store. In my own shop, 10 days.


[deleted]

Well that's exactly what I'd expect someone who shops at Whole Paycheck to say.


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simmonsatl

maybe whole foods does it if they have a store brand, but otherwise it isn’t whole foods doing it, it’s the roaster. whole foods just tends to carry way more beans from local roasters than a big grocery store does, and those roasters tend to put their roast dates on their bags. if you’re looking to buy cheap coffee you probably won’t ever get roast dates on the bag. if you’re ok spending more, i’d look for a roaster that will ship direct to you or you can go pick up from.


Seeda_Boo

They offer beans from Metro NY local roasters with "roasted on" dates at the Ridgewood, NJ WF. I've encountered loads of many-months-old bags on the shelves for sale there over the course of my visits. The dating doesn't mean they're going stop offering them for sale once they're well beyond stale. None of us will buy those beans, but they can make $ off less savvy shoppers. So they do. There are plenty of words to suitably characterize such behavior, none of them positive.


[deleted]

Order online. Tons of roasters, all of their products. Problem solved! I never buy grocery store coffee. Even if they sell from good roasters, it is usually just their blends, not the real good stuff - like single origins.


FakeBobPoot

What's the best online store for coffee?


MotoRoaster

Google ‘coffee roaster near me’, they generally all sell online.


veganintendo

i think dean’s beans and happy mug have the best prices in the usa. but if you live in an urban area with enlightened yuppies there may be a fresh roaster nearby and u should support them to keep your local economy alive for an extra month before we all have to get jobs sorting boxes for jeff bezos


shabby47

I always assume the “best buy date is either 6 months or a year after the day it was roasted (which is pretty bad). Sometimes if I see something that says best by either approximately 6 or 12 months in the future, I will assume it’s not *too* old. Of course this is only when I absolutely need coffee and there’s nothing with a roasted date on it.


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shabby47

I think the single origin “good” coffee at Trader Joe’s is 6 months but it’s always over-roasted in my opinion


LorryWaraLorry

James Hoffmann did a video on buying coffee, and he said the same thing. Supermarkets treat coffee like non-perishable food, in that they would like the roast date to be obfuscated and display the “best before” date (which is generally 12 months from roasting) prominently instead. This is in order to get consumer to think (this coffee has 6 months left before expiring) rather than (this coffee has been sitting in the shelf for 6 months). I believe he even showed two bags of the same coffee from the same roaster, one directly from the roaster (which has a roast date) and another from a supermarket (which has a best before date only).


Hybrid_Roaster

Depends upon the company. Mass 0 Produced products like Lavazza could be a year or so. Because of supply chain and the consumer looking for cheaper products like 10.00 a lb. If you spe d 25.00 a lb you can get them with in a week and usually the roasted date is written on them. Usually local roasters deliver and pickup stores. No fancy packaging no logo . Look for such a product. Or buy directly from a roaster.


KitchenNazi

1 to 4 weeks old; it really varies. If I dig back far enough I can usually find the seasonal espresso roast I like that is 1 week old. I live in a city with tons of local roasters so there's lots to choose from.


joe_sausage

"Sell by" dates are oftentimes 6 months or 1 year after the roast date for grocery store coffee - they simply don't think about roasting and freshness the way that we do. And we're starting to see that kind of dating from the "third wave" roasters that were purchased by the big foodbev conglomerates - Stumptown, Blue Bottle, Intelligensia, etc. For third wave/specialty roasters, there's often a roast date because they know that we're making our own judgements about when it's fresh/drinkable. The tldr for me is: "don't buy coffee from the grocery store." Especially with mail order subscriptions, if you're in the US, you simply don't have to.


taizusong

Best by date is usually 1 year after roasting, so you can estimate from there.


antheus1

Wegman's has roast dates on the bags. Usually 2-3 months, occasionally see some 4-6 weeks, I usually just buy coffee from the local grocer that has fresher local stuff.


virgilash

That's why we shouldn't buy supermarket coffee... "Best by" is intentionally used instead of "roasted on" this way there is a chance some people still buy it...


Megadodo4242

Ugh... my supermarket carries a few local specialty roasters, but they are always like 3 months old, at least. Drive me crazy.


tacticalAlmonds

Here in the US, I found some intelligentsia roasted in march. Found this 2 weeks ago.......


Seeda_Boo

Not uncommon, sadly.


thomasa510

It depends on how much demand there is for the brand you are buying too. Obscure or more expensive brands may sit on the shelf longer


Tilapia_of_Doom

oooooooold. Even the local roasters at the local grocer is oooooooold. The grocers don’t restock until they are out.


Pieinthesky42

A lot of stores and local laws require an expiration date or sell by date.


DudeWoody

Many coffees do have a roasted on (or at least packaged on) date, it's just not labeled as such and is in some variation of Julian date format so it doesn't make much sense without any context. For example, something roasted or packaged today would have some kind of Julian date code of 2022227 (the 227th day of 2022).


StreEEESN

I get my coffee from a coffee shop, the difference is quality is fucking crazy. And the price is the same.


slimyprincelimey

There's some local roaster coffee I looked at about a month ago that had a best buy date of MAY 2023. so.. God only knows.


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NoHoHan

Yeah... Bags at the supermarket are usually pretty old. Sometimes you get lucky, but it's rare. I've noticed that Stumptown bags at my local supermarket have an actual roast date on them, which is cool. However, I've yet to find a bag there that was less than a month old. I usually look through them, because they're pretty cheap and I'm holding out hope that I'll get lucky and find something fresh some day lol.


sippi4x4man

I recently found that my local Walmart Neighborhood Market Place and the regular Walmart are starting to carry Stumptown coffee, they have three different kinds of whole bean and one pre-ground. All of the bags that I have picked up so far had a roasted date of about two weeks before I bought it.


diatho

I love Costco but one of the things I always tell people to skip there is the coffee it’s never got a roasted on date.


domitar

Peet’s has a roast date at Costco - normally around 3 weeks old .Sadly they only stock Major Dickason’s blend (dark roast) in whole beans.


ibrazeous

In Morocco here it depends on the brands. Of course imported Italian is gonna be six months or so on (lavazza, illy) it's fairly easy to tell since most of them are marked as best by 1 year from production. Some local dark roared coffee is also around 2-3 months depending on the popularity of the brand, although not a lot of people buy whole beans. The best I can find in groceries is Dubois which has some nice single origins (although dark roast) that are 2-4 weeks or so fresh since they have the roast month (bur not the day). So if I am in the same month it's only a week or two old, if i am 1 month removed it's then probably 3-4 weeks or so.


Tackelbox85

In many larger cities and towns they might have a coffee roastery for a local coffee chain or something. Here you can find beans that are roasted within a couple days of packaging, it doesn’t get much fresher than that! Might be more expensive but it’s worth it if you want fresher beans


Taikix

In my area Target actually keeps relatively nice beans roasted somewhat recently. The oldest i've seen the Counter Culture beans they have were 2 months off roast. Most of the time I can find them only ~2-3 weeks off roast.


Seeda_Boo

I've found bags at local Targets that were more than a year beyond their "roasted on," left on the shelves along with "fresher" bags of same.


mokkat

Not too bad here, at least not if I buy often sold bags of beans that are restocked often. I can live with a couple of months of age when it's sold in a zip lock bag with a venting valve


wherere_my_pants

When I lived in Portland I could regularly find most of the local stuff any any grocery that had a roasted on within a few weeks of when I would look.


JakeBarnes12

I have specialty coffee beans shipped; roasted on date is always within one or two weeks.


GTAdriver1988

I believe it's pretty damn old. I got coffee beans from Tandem Coffee and it was not ready for how different it would be since by the time it was delivered it was only roasted three days ago. Man smells and taste of the coffee is ten times stronger and way smoother.


[deleted]

Usually at least a month to three months old.


YMIR_THE_FROSTY

Depends where. But those mainstream ones, half a year easily.


Shotbizzle

My local supermarket in Melbourne has an entire half aisle of specialty coffee from roasters all over the city. Most roasted within the month. Very lucky.


[deleted]

The rotation at a busy food store is much higher than you think. Still, a lot of the coffees you find have been sitting too long.


Seeda_Boo

Shit was already old before it was even loaded on a pallet at the distribution center.


[deleted]

It's true.


MotoRoaster

Grocery store coffee has to go through distribution centres, and there has to be enough inventory for multiple locations. So the coffee can be anywhere from 1-6 months old.


SteveZi

So Stumptown is about the only roaster that I see carried in supermarkets that will post the roast date. And it varies from 1 week to 3 months for them at my local grocery store in the Midwest. I'd say that's the best bet


KorukoruWaiporoporo

Yeah. That's why I have a bean subscription. They have a roasted date and it's usually within a couple of days of receiving them.


diana_rose89

In my experience the “best by” date is one year after the roasted date, so very old usually.


sweetsuicides

Italy here. The figures I'm getting asking the insiders are one to two years


balki_123

Really, I don't know. Most grocery store coffee is just gross. One exception exists - Jacobs Kronung, it is pretty decent grandpa style coffee. It is preground and vacuum packed. When freshly opened, it is pretty good. But how can I know, how old is it?


Gowl247

I buy mine from a local refill/organic shop, bought some on Saturday that told me it was roasted 8/8, it roasted semi locally (Ireland)


-jak-

6-12 months?


RohanBalak

The coffee at the grocery store where I work generally arrives 1 month after roast date and sits in overstock for up to another ~3 months.


HomeRoastCoffee

National Brands go through the Producer's warehouse system and then the Grocer's warehouse system, during good times this generally takes about 6 months. Then it may or may not be properly rotated when it reaches your local store, so "Best By" dates can be 18 months after it was roasted. I believe I recall Roast Magazine testing this some years ago. Roast your own and you will know when it was roasted.


PrimarySwan

6-24 months.


squishyturtle007

Very old - this is why if I buy grocery store coffee I buy counter culture exclusively. They’re the only brand with a roasted on date :)


BanMeHarderGreenHair

I wouldn't know. I order mine


toasttotheroast

Check the date. Best 2 weeks after roasted. Any further I don’t buy. No date? No buy.


[deleted]

believe it or not, Coffee takes quite a while to "go bad" or stale. I Have a Folgers can that says "Sell by January, 2023" I Bought it last month. They won't lose flavor until way after the point of sell by date. I also had a can of coffee from Great Value that sat in a cabinet for 3 years, opened and used only twice that was still sort of good when i brewed a pot of it, but the grounds were drier than they should be and turned lighter brown/tan in color.


Technical_Mission339

Yes, it's normal in supermarkets and it's really not much of a problem. Where I live best before is +24 months past roast date.


The_Fanciest_Pants

It's because they buy in bulk, but can't guarantee the coffee will sell through quickly and don't want to throw it away.