Aging Green Beans....

[olateone]

Hello to all wide-eyed and wired coffee afficianados.

Anyone ever age their green beans for a few years like they would age
fine cigars or wine?

Read somewhere that it seems to improve the taste of the coffee.

I'm planning on buying a few 5-pound bags of Kona Peaberry beans and
just stash it away for a few years.

Thanks in advance.

[Kayak_Rat]

I would be very intersted in hearing what our resident caffiene heads had to say. Good topic.

[Jack1000]

This is from Sweet Marias:

Sumatra Aged Mandheling (’03 Crop)
Aged coffee, true aged coffee, can be a shock to the system. It is a mixture of pain (initially) and pleasure, later, when the initial shock has worn off. In fact, aged coffee is defective. But then again, so is fruity wine, some people would argue. Good aged coffee, real aged coffee, will have great body, extremely low acidity, smokey notes, woody/oaky flavors, and an intensity of flavor you will either love or hate.
The first sip is indeed a bit jarring, but after your palate adjusts, you can find a unique sweetness, like sweet smoke, aged-oaky notes, heavy body, and a complete lack of acidity … well, very very low acidity. It has a certain mellowness to it that is hard to describe, because the first sip is definitely not mellow and soft.

[ResIpsa]

Originally Posted by Jack1000

This is from Sweet Marias:

Sumatra Aged Mandheling (’03 Crop)
Aged coffee, true aged coffee, can be a shock to the system. It is a mixture of pain (initially) and pleasure, later, when the initial shock has worn off. In fact, aged coffee is defective. But then again, so is fruity wine, some people would argue. Good aged coffee, real aged coffee, will have great body, extremely low acidity, smokey notes, woody/oaky flavors, and an intensity of flavor you will either love or hate.
The first sip is indeed a bit jarring, but after your palate adjusts, you can find a unique sweetness, like sweet smoke, aged-oaky notes, heavy body, and a complete lack of acidity … well, very very low acidity. It has a certain mellowness to it that is hard to describe, because the first sip is definitely not mellow and soft.

The sumatran mandehling is one of the only aged coffees I have ever seen for sale anywhere. Personally I've been tempted to try it but havent pulled the trigger yet.

That being said I believe the Sumatran is aged under controlled conditions, it is not just old coffee sitting around. I've read that as "ordinary" green beans sit around growing older the flavors will mute and acidity will drop. Whether or not you find that to be an improvement would be a matter of personal preference I guess In any event I don't think that Kona is a bean you would want to try it on, as Kona to me is a fairly bland, smooth coffee with no particularly defining characteristic to it. Whatever uniqueness it does have would be lost to age, IMO. Mr. Maduroo, where are you??

[Jack1000]

Got to agree with Vic about the Kona. If low acid coffee is your goal there are some good ones out there.

Plus kona is expensive stuff-- not sure I'd want to experiment with green coffee that sells for $16 a pound.

[Mister Moo]

Originally Posted by ResIpsa

... Mr. Maduroo, where are you??

As if?

Personal experience - I never had any beans that tasted better after sitting in my 68-70f low rh cupboard for a couple of years; nor did any actually taste grossly off. Exception: monsooned malabar seems to start going flat (to me) after a year or so. I have used it as a blending item and the magic will go away over shelf time. I've never stored any beans more than two years, approx., and nobody ever sold me any based on how old they were.

Other - I never read a lick about green beans getting better over time. Anything I recall was to the contrary.

Comment - I wouldn't pick anything Kona to start my experiments on - I'd start with Vietnamese robusta, seemingly the cheapest, crappiest, most abundant bean on the planet. If anyone can age those hamster-apples into something better tasting, he's gonna be rich!

[Mister Moo]

Paranoid after-thought. Galaga, evil genius with time on his hands and WIJ already in his pocket, put Olateone up to this and you'all are having a pool on how may words I'll write.

Aging any coffee beans in very low relative humidity (like, shall we say, NEVADA!) would probably ruin them, period. I daresay some arid-region Yemani and Ethiopian coffee growers would have expert opinion on this. I don't know any of them and you don't either - so I can't be proved wrong here. But we do know that roast qualities derive from micro-management of moisture super-heated inside the skin of the bean before it eases (and finally cracking) out in the first of many water-based and heat-initiated chemical reactions. No moisture, no roast, no caramelization... blah blah blah - crapola from any dried out bean.

The hearsay about Indonesian aged coffee (and my anecdotal experience with monsooned coffee fading in a 55% rh cupboard) suggests storage in high(er) rh might keep coffee stable longer or even improve it. And it might make it mold or germinate.

This kind of intellectual masturbation is my specialty. But sadly, here it ends, because my unaged coffee is already so stinking good that I love it just the way it is, every day. If there were aged coffees out there that were SOOOOOO much gooder, somebody here would have tried some already and reported that life simply cannot go on without aging our green beans. And we are not a crowd afraid to buy something and let it sit around for years so we can appreciate it, more, later. But it isn't happening. So it does not exist. The world may be flat, yet a I walk on.

Res Ipsa - or - Reductio ad absurdum? Or both!?

[ResIpsa]

I think Mr. Maduroo hits it on the head. Coffee drinking has been going on for a lonnnnnngggggggg time. Somewhere, sometime in the past somebody mistakenly(or purposely) aged beans. If this was a good thing, we would know about it. And so, since we don't, [SIZE="4"]Res Ipsa Loquitur [/SIZE](the thing speaks for itself.)

and to close,

Acta est fabula, plaudite!!!!

[Jack1000]

I have been wondering what the signifigance of ResIpsa was for a while-- never occured to me to google it though.

Originally Posted by ResIpsa

I think Mr. Maduroo hits it on the head. Coffee drinking has been going on for a lonnnnnngggggggg time. Somewhere, sometime in the past somebody mistakenly(or purposely) aged beans. If this was a good thing, we would know about it. And so, since we don't, [SIZE="4"]Res Ipsa Loquitur [/SIZE](the thing speaks for itself.)

and to close,

Acta est fabula, plaudite!!!!

[Mister Moo]

So there was no pool?

[olateone]

Thanks to all....truly a bunch of purists at heart.

Will keep selections in small amounts...in sealed bags...with different varieties
of green beans....in a "coffeedor"....next to the coolerdors.

Just seems interesting about the outcome in a few years.

[ResIpsa]

Originally Posted by Mister MaDuroo

So there was no pool?

there was.....Jack1000 won

[ResIpsa]

Originally Posted by Jack1000

I have been wondering what the signifigance of ResIpsa was for a while.

Thanks Jamie, I've been wondering about my significance for the past couple of years now myself,

[Mister Moo]

Congrat Jack'1K. If you read my posts, you earned it.

But all this now leads me to consider how nicely coffee and cigar flavors go together. As many know, a very small bag of fresh-roasted coffee will totally permeate a car in an hour. Has anyone ever tried putting a small bag of ground, fresh roast in a humidor? This may have more promise than aging green beans.

[Jack1000]

Originally Posted by ResIpsa

there was.....Jack1000 won

Wow-- I never win anything.