Coffee rarely goes bad in the sense of making you ill. It goes flat, which is a bigger problem, because nothing on the packet warns you and most people never notice. The date on most bags in India is a best-before date, and it measures the wrong thing.
In short: sealed coffee stays safe for 6 to 12 months (the best-before date), but it tastes its best only from about 4 days to 3 weeks after roasting, and goes noticeably flat after 6 weeks. Ground coffee stales about ten times faster. Look for a roast date, buy what you'll finish in two to three weeks, and keep it sealed in a cupboard.
Does coffee expire? Two different clocks
Spoiling. Roasted coffee is very dry, so bacteria struggle to grow in it. Kept sealed, it's safe long past the printed date. Eventually the oils go rancid, like old nuts, and it tastes papery. Unpleasant, not dangerous. That's the clock a best-before date tracks, usually six to twelve months.
Staling. This is the one that matters. From the moment it's roasted, coffee loses the aroma that makes it taste of anything. Most of it is gone within weeks, long before the best-before date. A four-month-old bag is perfectly safe and mostly pointless.
A best-before date tells you when coffee stops being food. A roast date tells you when it stops being interesting.
How long coffee stays good
From the roast date, for sealed whole beans in a valve bag:
Age
What's happening
Days 0 to 3
Still releasing lots of gas. Brews unevenly. Usable, not at its best
Days 4 to 21
At its best. Drink it now
Weeks 3 to 6
Still good, slowly getting quieter
Weeks 6 to 12
Noticeably flat. Sweetness goes first, and bitterness stands out more
Beyond 3 months
Coffee-flavoured, the way instant is
Once the bag is open, it all speeds up. Aim to finish it in two to three weeks.
Ground coffee ages about ten times faster. It's noticeably duller within a week of opening and flat within a month. Finer grinds, like espresso and South Indian filter, go fastest.
How to tell if yours has gone flat
Smell the bag. Fresh coffee fills the room. If you have to lean in, it's old.
Watch the bloom. Pour a little hot water on the grounds. Fresh coffee puffs up and bubbles. Stale coffee just gets wet. This is the best home test there is.
Taste for the flat spot. Stale coffee isn't sour, it's empty: thin in the middle, bitter at the end, no sweetness. If you've been adding more sugar lately, this is usually why.
Storing it properly
Do: keep it in its valve bag, rolled down and clipped, or an airtight, opaque container in a cupboard. Buy what you'll finish in two to three weeks. Grind per brew if you can.
Don't: use the fridge (it's humid and smelly, and condensation forms on the beans every time you take them out). Don't keep it in a clear jar on the counter, above the stove or next to the kettle.
The freezer works if you portion first and never refreeze. Split beans into airtight single portions, take one out at a time and brew straight from frozen. The full guide is in how to store coffee.
Roast date vs expiry date: what to look for when you buy
A roast date. Not "packed on", not "best before".
A one-way valve, the small plastic disc on the bag.
Whole beans if you have a grinder, or a grind that names your brewer.
A size you'll finish. 250 g lasts one daily drinker two to three weeks, so open one bag at a time. A kilo in a single bag means drinking the last 400 g flat. If your house gets through a kilo a month, buy it as four sealed 250 g bags.
If a bag won't say when it was roasted, it's asking you to believe that doesn't matter. It matters more than anything else on the label.
Why we roast after you order
The usual route is roast in bulk, ship to a distributor, sit in a warehouse, sit on a shelf. By the time you open it, the coffee is often two to four months old. Safe and within its best-before date, but most of the flavour has gone.
We roast to order on the estate in Chikmagalur and ship direct, so coffee usually reaches you within about ten days of roasting, right in the window where it's at its best. It also means we hold no stale stock.
For what else to look for on a bag and what it should cost, read buying coffee beans in India. If your coffee's fresh but the cup still isn't right, check your grind.
