Most coffee experts think it’s better to grind coffee beans right before you use them, and so do we! Sure, it takes a few extra minutes in the morning that you could’ve spent sleeping. But there’s a big difference in the taste between freshly ground coffee and coffee grounds that have been sitting in your refrigerator for two weeks. So rolling out of bed early is worth it!
If you’re still not convinced, today we’re going to compare coffee beans and ground coffee so that you can decide for yourself which one is better!
We hope that by the end of this post, you’ll decide to grind high quality coffee beans yourself with a good coffee grinder, though.
Friends don’t let friends drink bad coffee!
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Coffee Beans Have More Flavor
Did you know that ground coffee starts losing its flavor immediately after grinding? Just 15 minutes after running it through the coffee grinder, your coffee has already lost 60% of its delicious aroma and flavor. Isn’t that awful?
This is because the aromatic compounds in coffee are very volatile and delicate. They get released during the grinding process and immediately start to oxidize and dissipate into the air. After a few minutes, your coffee’s flavor is irreversibly changed, and not for the better!
If coffee’s flavor changes so much just 15 minutes after grinding, imagine how much pre-ground coffee changes while it’s sitting in trucks and grocery stores! That’s why you have to grind your own coffee and use it immediately to get the best cup of joe possible.
Whole Coffee Beans Last Longer
Ground coffee doesn’t just lose its flavor faster than whole roasted coffee beans—it also spoils faster.
Ground coffee has a lot more surface area than whole coffee beans, which gives light, heat and oxygen a chance to get at your coffee from more directions. This makes the delicate oils in the coffee spoil faster. As soon as those oils go rancid, you won’t be able to drink your coffee.
An unopened bag of whole roasted coffee beans will last in your cupboard for about six months, whereas ground coffee will only last for three. Coffee doesn’t last that long in our house, so it’s not a huge deal that ground coffee from the store spoils faster. But it is a huge deal that it doesn’t taste as good as freshly ground coffee beans!
Whole Coffee Beans Are Higher Quality
Manufacturers know that the bags of ground coffee they ship out to the grocery store are going to lose a lot of their taste. That’s why they don’t usually invest in putting higher quality beans into their ground coffee blends, and you get a lower quality cup of coffee.
Some ground coffees even have fillers like corn, wheat, soybeans, brown sugar, rye, barley, twigs and dirt added to them. Can you believe that your morning cup of mud might actually have mud in it? Gross!
Coffee Beans Are More Versatile
If you want to know exactly what’s in your coffee, you should only buy whole coffee beans. Luckily roasters can’t sneak anything inedible into whole beans to up their profits!
Coffee lovers like us have tons of coffee equipment. We have French presses, espresso machines, drip coffee makers… the list goes on and on!
So we need the coffee that we buy to be versatile. It needs to be able to make the perfect pour over and a good, strong cup of joe in the AeroPress if we’re going to be happy with it.
Whole coffee beans can do that, but a bag of pre-ground coffee can’t.
Each piece of coffee making equipment requires a different grind size. So if you buy a bag of finely ground espresso beans, you’ll only be able to use it to make coffee in the espresso machine or AeroPress. You’ll have to buy multiple bags of ground coffee in all different grind sizes, or put several of your beloved coffee machines away for the week. Sad, right?
If you’re a true coffee lover, who loves to experiment with different coffee machines, then you need to start grinding your own coffee! That way you can use any brewing method you want, not just the one you bought the right kind of ground coffee for.
