Six tips for storing coffee

June 7, 9:13 PMLA Coffee ExaminerKim Winklhofer

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Quality coffee ain't cheap. Do yourself a favor and maximize the flavor by storing your coffee correctly.

• Store it away from the five dastardly enemies of coffee: heat, humidity, oxygen, odors, and light.

• Keep it in bean form until you want to grind and use it. Coffee beans are tiny little individual packages. Grinding them before you want to use them is like opening the bag of potato chips and not eating any until the next day (an impossible task for me.)

• An opaque ceramic jar with a rubber gasket is ideal. Light can't get in. Neither can air. Keep the jar in the cool, dry place and you're good to go.

• Susan Zimmer, author of I Love Coffee!, recommends you go the extra mile and put the beans in a paper bag, squeeze out the air, close it with a rubber band and keep the whole kit and caboodle in your opaque, ceramic, air-tight canister. This keeps out even more light, air, and moisture from attacking your precious beans.

•Never ever store coffee beans or grounds in the refrigerator, even in your airtight container. Anyone caught storing coffee in the fridge deserves to have their coffee-drinking license revoked. Just kidding. Cheesecake pairs well with coffee. Humidity and odors--two things refrigerators are notorious for, don't. Besides, if you keep it in the fridge, you're likely to be taking the container in and out and the change in temperature over time will degrade the quality.

• It's best to buy only as much as you'll use in a week.. A week is the amount of time coffee beans remain fresh. If you have a surplus, freeze only whole beans.

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Photo credit: Greg Burkett