Until now, freezing coffee was considered something that should not be done: coffee should not be stored in the freezer, but in a dark, dry and temperature stable environment. This was true for those who consume coffee at home and store it in the freezer or refrigerator to make it last longer. Coffee is known for its odor neutralizing properties and easily absorbs the odor of other objects (or food) that are in its immediate environment. Another reason not to store coffee this way is that storing it this way allows further moisture to penetrate the coffee, making it stale faster and essentially losing the intensity and complexity of its flavor. Who wants to lose the wonderful floral notes and complex flavor of an expensive Geisha coffee, right?
Meanwhile, people see it differently! Provided you can freeze the coffee fast enough to very high sub-zero temperatures and manage to keep it away from any moisture in the freezer by keeping the beans in a vacuum-sealed package. Then you can freeze your coffee without any problems.
First, why would you want to freeze a coffee? Some roasters want to store their more expensive competition coffees, perhaps to sell next season or even to use for next year's competition. This is because often the coffee that was so delicious the previous year is not produced the same way the next year. Coffee is a very fickle product and the rarer and more delicious coffees are often more difficult to grow and the impact of processing is also constantly changing.
The real challenge, however, is re-thawing the coffee and then brewing or even roasting it.
Many roasters and cafes found that they were quite successful with their frozen coffees, and the quality remained consistent for up to a year after freezing. Even when they thawed green beans and roasted them a year later, they found that the quality of the coffee did not decline as quickly as it would have if it had not been frozen.
If you want to freeze roasted coffee, it's best to freeze it right after roasting. This is done by roasting companies that also offer instant coffee.
Today, there are many cafes that offer hand brew bars that offer up to 15-20 different types of coffee because guests can choose from a variety of coffees in the freezer. This is a big change in the coffee industry because now many different types of coffee can be offered at the same time. In many cases, cafes or roasters can only offer a small number of different coffees at their bars because the flavor deteriorates due to the aging of the green beans or the fact that they are not served within a certain time window after roasting.
