Our goal is to make specialty coffee approachable, and we want it to be an ongoing conversation. Feedback, questions or thoughts are always welcome through our ‘Contact Us’ page.
Here are some common coffee questions and informational tidbits we think will enhance your coffee experience.
Why do you prefer selling whole beans over ground coffee?
We absolutely prefer selling whole bean coffee because it preserves flavors and aromatics inside the coffee bean for much longer than ground coffee. We talk a lot about ways to preserve your coffee to ensure the freshest product, but this is at the top of the list. Grinding your own coffee at home right before brewing is the best way to guarantee an amazing cup of coffee. Everyone loves that nostalgic coffee aroma, but most people don’t know that there’s a lot more aromatics encased inside the bean. The aroma is very extreme immediately after you grind the coffee, but will diminish quickly. The longer you wait, the less flavor will be extracted. Most coffees start losing their flavor the moment the coffee is ground- this is why we DON’T recommend buying ground coffee.
Do yourself a favor, buy a grinder! (Research blade grinder vs conical burr grinder before making a purchase. We will highlight the pros and cons of each in a later discussion)
If you still prefer your coffee ground, please send us a note when placing your order and we’ll take care of it. We also send follow up emails to ask your coffee preference before shipping, so it can also be noted then.
How fresh is my coffee?
Oh, it’s fresh! We ship your coffee the same day it’s roasted, and most customers will receive it between 1-3 days after shipping. We typically find that 5-7 days after roasting is the sweet spot for our coffee’s peak flavor and aromatics. Getting your coffee before this is important because we believe the flavors are much more enjoyable while they are still building, rather than degrading. Coffee holds truly great flavors for about two weeks, and after two weeks it progressively gets more mild in flavor and aromatics until about 30 days, when it just goes flat. For this reason, we don’t recommend buying coffee that will sit around for more than one month.
A note about coffee degassing: it is true that coffee degasses for about 12-24 hours after it has been roasted. Only cafes with espresso machines or home espresso machines have to be cautious and wait the full 24 hours before putting the fresh grinds in a pressurized system. Truly, a bean roasted for espresso should wait the full 5 days after roasting. We will be sure to factor this time in for our espresso customers.
For all other brew methods that don’t use pressurized systems (e.g. auto-drip, pour over, chemex, french press, moka pot, etc.) just apply water to the coffee grounds as you normally would, and the gasses will be released into the air. These coffee-drinkers can enjoy our coffee asap, no wait necessary!
What’s the best way to store coffee once I receive it?
There are three main culprits that contribute to the degradation of coffee flavors and aromas: oxygen, light, and humidity. In order to best store your coffee you will need to remove the oxygen and keep in a cool dark place.
There are some great coffee storage products on the market. Here are a couple of our favorites:
These containers remove oxygen from the vessel and have opaque walls to protect from light. Just be sure to keep it in a cool place (food pantry/cabinet is fine). We recommend these products to customers that drink and buy coffee often.
Anyone that takes longer than one month to drink a bag of coffee should consider storing in the freezer. Don’t worry about the water in freshly roasted coffee- it’s non-freezable.
For freezer storage, we really like the Waring Commercial Reusable Vacuum Sealed Bags.
The pump is sold separately. We recommend that you separate the coffee in individual bags for each respective serving, vacuum seal all bags, and place in the freezer. At night take out the servings you want to drink the next day. This allows the coffee to come back to room temperature before grinding. If you don’t want to do this every night, just take out enough for the next week and keep in your pantry.
And, if you don’t want to buy any of the above items, you can easily store your coffee in a clean glass jar, ziploc or tupperware. These items don’t do a good job of removing the oxygen, but chances are that you already have them lying around so you don’t have to purchase anything extra.
Is there more caffeine in a dark roast?
This is a common misconception. The simple answer is no. If we were to roast the same bean, but roast one light and the other dark, there would be no difference in the amount of caffeine. The caffeine chemistry is unchanged throughout the roasting process, therefore it doesn’t become more or less concentrated. Every bean starts with about 1% caffeine, and after roasting, it will still have 1% caffeine in the finished product. So this answer is based on a bean to bean comparison of caffeine.
The more in-depth answer requires an understanding of weight and volume of light vs dark roasted beans. Coffee loses anywhere from 11-24% of its original “pre-roast” weight. The lighter roasts will range from 11-15% in weight, and the darker roasts anywhere from 20-24%. This happens because the darker you roast coffee beans, (ie, applying more energy with heat for a longer period of time) the more the bean cellulose structure breaks down, ultimately making the coffee bean less dense. This means that darker roasted beans will weigh less than lighter beans. Therefore, if you were to weigh, for example, 30 grams of light and dark roasted coffee, there will be more coffee in the pile of the dark roast, giving you more caffeine in your brew.
Darker beans are typically bigger and more voluminous, making them look swollen, shiny, and smooth. In comparison, lighter roasts appear more shriveled, wrinkled and small, take up less space, and are less voluminous. Therefore, if you were to measure one cup each of light and dark roasted whole bean coffee, there would be less coffee beans in the dark roasted cup. This is true because each bean of the dark roasted coffee takes up more space than light roasted coffee. Please note, this example and section on volume does not apply to ground coffee.
Lastly, remember you can always extract more/less caffeine by using different ratios of water to coffee, different brew methods, different grind size, different bean varietals, and coffee grown at different elevations. So if you like one type of roast for its taste, don’t be discouraged that it has more or less caffeine, simply change other bean variables.
What separates Ground Keeper coffee from other coffee brands?
Ground Keeper strives to be a completely conscious brand. Here’s what that means to us:
We are inclusive.
There’s a lot going on in the world and we want to be a part of that. When we began our journey, we came up with the name Ground Keeper as a play on coffee grounds, but more importantly, one of our missions is to donate a minimum of 5% of our profits to environmental preservation and help be “keepers of the ground”. Recent events have shifted our focus a bit. For the foreseeable future, we will be donating toward racial and social equality. We have some preferred organizations, but please send us a message on our contact page if you have any recommendations.
We are eco-conscious.
We use biodegradable materials and minimize waste whenever possible, and are continuously striving to be better. For example, we use stamps on our coffee bags instead of stickers, and we ship our coffee in biodegradable bags
We are health conscious.
We’re very aware of the effects of what we put in and on our bodies and how that makes us feel. The same way we make an effort to eat high-quality nutritious food, we produce high-quality coffee, because it’s smoother without the “crash”, and makes us feel better than cheaper or mass produced brands. We also research and test coffee from around the world and select the highest quality and freshest beans available to us. For example, our current selection, the Costa Rica Terrazu was just harvested and shipped to us. It doesn’t get any fresher than that!
We roast our coffee with YOU in mind.
We’re a “micro-roaster”, so when you place an order, we’re roasting specifically for you and shipping your coffee out the same day. We don’t mass produce and have coffee idling around going stale. Coffee is special. For many people it’s their morning ritual. How you start your day is important, and a lot of times will carry the intention for that day, so we strive to make a positive impact on that with a fresh, high-quality product, roasted and shipped specifically for you. Speaking of your specifications- after every order, we send an email to get more information about your coffee preferences. If you don’t know, or don’t want to reply, no worries- we’ll roast the coffee as we feel it’s intended.