Coffee Bean Direct Blog

Thoughts from Meg

Hi there, Meg here, one of the newest employees at Coffee Bean Direct. My first day on the job was October 5, and in the past few months, I have learned so many amazing facts about coffee! Here are a few:

• The darker the roast, the less caffeine in the coffee. This fact seemed rather counter-intuitive when I first heard it, but our Master Roaster, Al, says it is so! The roasting process burns off caffeine in the beans, and the longer the beans are roasted, the more caffeine is driven off. People think, darker/strong coffee means more of a jolt, but that is the exact opposite of reality.
• Coffee beans should never be “vacuum sealed” because they need to breathe. Coffee beans give off gasses and that gas needs to go somewhere! That is why our 1- and 5-lb bags include a one-way valve (gas can go out, but no air can get in) and our 25-lb burlaps are lined and then sewn shut. Many people think once they open a bag of coffee at home, they should re-seal the beans in a mason jar or using a FoodSaver® type machine. No, no, no! Vacuum sealing is bad for your beans!
• Green coffee—it may not be what you think it is! Green has so many meanings these days: good for the environment, good for the economy, organic, healthy…In the world of coffee, green beans are unroasted, raw, very small, and dense. All our coffee arrives at our warehouse green. We then roast it, perhaps flavor it, then pack it and ship it to our customers. Customers, you can order green beans from us, but beware: they are unroasted!
• Now, that is some roaster! Our new roaster can complete four 150-lb roasts an hour, which means we can roast 14,400 pounds—more than 7 tons!—of coffee every day. That’s a lot of coffee! Just imagine how high that mountain of coffee would be.