A brief history of pre-ground coffee
When I began Rube's Good-Brain Coffee, one of the questions I mulled over for many days was: Should I offer ground coffee to our customers as an option? Doing so was not ideal. While our tongues are capable of perceiving only basic flavors -- e.g., sour, bitter, salty, and sweet -- much of roasted coffee's flavor is stored in its gases -- that is, its CO2. So it is our noses which perceive the most subtle flavors via fragrance and aroma; and as Ted R. Lingle expressed in The Coffee Cuppers' Handbook: 'If something does not become a gas, we cannot smell it.'
Coffee, once ground, rapidly begins losing its flavor, so it's vital to brew ground coffee as soon as possible. The Specialty Coffee Association recommends coffee be brewed, at most, thirty minutes after being ground -- and then only if it's been covered. Knowing that, just imagine how much CO2 could possibly be left once ground coffee has been sitting on supermarket shelves for weeks or even months? Much of your coffee's sparkle, by then, is gone. Still, people continue to buy pre-ground coffee. Why is that? There was once a time when this was not the case. In fact, prior to the mid-1850's people bought their coffee raw -- as green beans. They then roasted it themselves. Of course, it was necessary to grind their own coffee. All of that changed, however, once roasting companies began to emerge. Once they did, roasting began to be done on a much larger scale. I imagine, due to this, stones, rocks, and other foreign debris became much easier to miss than it would be for the typical home roaster. Naturally, some of these stones got caught in a customers' grinders, causing damage.
Speaking to William H. Ukers about the start of his father's coffee business in 1862, Julius J. Schotten said: 'At that time there were no stoning or separating machines; and as a bag of the ordinary green Jamaica coffee contained from three to five pounds of stones and sticks, it was necessary to hand-pick the coffee after it was roasted.'
Elsewhere, A.E. Forbes spoke to Ukers of his own father's roasting business which started in the 1850's: 'Coffee was not cleaned or stoned, but was sold as it came from the sack. However, we did not use any very low grades then. If any one complained of the stones hurting their mills, we advised them to buy ground coffee, showing how it kept better ground as it was packed tight, whereas the roasted [whole bean coffee] was looser and the air could get through it.'
Of course, we now know this to be erroneous. To be fair, Forbes was probably speaking more of oxidation rather than de-gassing. Still, even when coffee is sealed in cans, it naturally wants to de-gas. The pressure from being sealed in a can will only prevent the CO2 from escaping it. This pressure will force the CO2 to remain in the beans. However, once the can's seal is broken, there's no pressure holding CO2 back, and the gasses will leave the beans as air would leave an untied balloon.
So if whole bean coffee is better than pre-ground coffee, why do customers continue to buy it? Well, I believe there are a few different reasons: 1) Convenience -- Buying pre-ground coffee is one less step the customer has to take in making their morning brew. 2) Equipment -- Although whirly-blade 'grinders' are not expensive, they're also not ideal. They don't produce a consistent grind, so they don't produce an even extraction. Still, it's probably better to use one of these than it would to buy pre-ground coffee. Still, ideally, one should want to invest in a nice burr-grinder. I would much rather see someone investing money into one of these and a simple French press rather than an expensive pod brewer which produces coffee which is convenient but substandard in quality. 3) Ignorance is bliss -- Mind you, I do not use the word 'ignorance' here as a pejorative. I believe, however, that many people are satisfied with pre-ground coffee because they literally don't know what they're missing. Remember: Customers had to be sold on buying pre-ground coffee, and one of those selling points was a supposed increase in quality.
It's natural for customers to want the best, and there's nothing 'snobby' about wanting to drink good coffee. I find it no more snobby than wanting to eat a nice, well-prepared home-cooked meal. We should remember, though, that no method communicates better than first-hand experience. If customers would only try freshly ground coffee, they would quickly perceive a leap in quality which would then be impossible to ignore.
4) Creatures of habit -- Humans are good at routines, and that's to our benefit. It helps us to achieve lots of things efficiently. However, it's also good for us, at times, to expand our comfort zones. Sure, there's going to be a learning curve when we begin to grind our own coffee, but it's not a steep one. Every brew will help us get a little better each time until we've mastered the craft. The best thing to do is to just jump in and do it!
As to my original dilemma of whether or not to offer ground coffee as an option to our customers, I've decided: Yes. Sure, it's not ideal, but it's still one step closer to reaching out to customers who have yet to experience specialty coffee. I'm certain that the pre-ground coffee I've roasted will be better than pre-ground coffee roasted by some of the big companies. After all, ours has been roasted-to-order, so our customers will receive it in only a few days off-roast -- not a few weeks or months. That's a huge step in the right direction. After experiencing the difference that freshly roasted coffee makes, enough trust can be built to help take that next step: Buying coffee whole bean, not ground.
For specialty coffee roasters, reaching out to new customers is a slow and steady process. We cannot expect to overcome over 150 years of misinformation overnight -- and that's fine. There's lots of joy to be found in sharing the wonders of excellent coffee with everyone, and we can share this experience with one individual coffee-lover at a time.
Dutch Hedrick is the founder and head roaster of Rube's Good-Brain Coffee. He has roasted coffee since 2003 and has previously roasted for Counter Culture Coffee and Joe Van Gogh. He began his career in specialty coffee in 1993. To shop our line of delicious specialty-grade coffees, just click wherever you see 'FRESH COFFEE NOW!'