Roasted coffee purchased from overseas

MWJB

Is anyone aware of any processes that roasted coffee might be exposed to when being shipped by air, that is detrimental to it?

LMSC

Hog n Dog International Filter comes from all over. It’s back dated a week up on receipt. I understand they receive bulk and more likely receive by courier. They would give you the best answer IMO. :-)

Not a direct answer to your question, though.

MWJB

LMSC If they (or any other roasters/suppliers) were aware of such a thing, then surely they wouldn’t offer coffee that had potentially gone through that process?

LMSC

MWJB Fair enough!

Would you mind explaining the process that roasted coffee shipped by air might have been exposed to please?
Are you expecting the cabin / cargo / atmospheric pressure the roasted beans could come under? If yes, would we not expect the greens to have issues - although they are very dense and likely to have lesser impact.
How are they different to local shipping ?
Why do you think it is relevant ?

:-)

MWJB

LMSC I don’t know, that is why I am asking 😀

Pressure, extremes of temperature, x-rays etc.?

I have had a few bags of roasted coffee that must have come via air freight that that were oddly lacking in intensity/identifiable notes.

LMSC

One potential source of concern may be roasted beans sent with one-way valve, where air pressure might damage the valve, resulting in oxidation, loss of freshness and becoming stale quickly.

The solution might be use a sticky tape over that or not to use one-way valve bag. It should be ok as air fright is faster.

LMSC

MWJB I have had a few bags of roasted coffee that must have come via air freight that that were oddly lacking in intensity/identifiable notes.

Wow! What were the EY ? Unfortunately, there is no way one can compare.

The Norwegian was fine, and it was backdated a week since delivery. I think the Spanish came 10 days - 2 weeks past. Both the bags weee terrible - lacklustre and tasteless.

As I posted earlier, cabin pressure can have an effect - especially if they are one-way valve. Not sure about the rest.

whinmoor85

LMSC I think the Spanish came 10 days - 2 weeks past. Both the bags were terrible - lacklustre and tasteless.

I wasn’t that impressed with the two filter coffees I got from Harmony Roasters either

MWJB

LMSC Wow! What were the EY ? Unfortunately, there is no way one can compare.

All reasonably normal 19-21%, the concentration of the beverage was in my typical range (1.40 to 1.60%TDS).

LMSC

@MWJB Very old thread. I am sure you may have seen this.

https://www.home-barista.com/coffees/effects-transporting-roasted-coffee-by-airplane-t30031.html

Edit
X-rays are electromagnetic radiation (something similar to invisible light), right ? There is no reason why it shouldn’t impact coffee, should it?

John_Yossarian

LMSC I have looked at this link. What they say makes perfect sense as due to the lower pressure a lot of CO2, which otherwise would be still with the roasted beans, has left the bag and is no longer contributing to rich crema. This is to be expected. Your comment to seal the one way valve would solve to a great extent this issue.

LMSC

MWJB All reasonably normal 19-21%

Except the most important variable - the taste!

Wouldn’t intensity affect yield and TDS ?

MWJB

LMSC Taste intensity should be broadly relative to TDS (concentration), but that is what I am finding odd, there has been very little taste of any kind in these instances.

LMSC

MWJB Taste intensity should be broadly relative to TDS (concentration), but that is what I am finding odd, there has been very little taste of any kind in these instances.

Unless the coffee was fine to drink, i.e, it had the required strength, acidity and smoothness but lacking just the notes.

MWJB

LMSC It had concentration in the measurable/technical sense, but almost no flavour/acidity/bitterness/anything at all to speak of. If the notes aren’t spot on, that’s fine with me, but brown water with a hint of generic coffee flavour is something else.

LMSC

MWJB brown water with a hint of generic coffee flavour is something else.

That sounds very familiar to me - the Spanish coffee - 2 of them last month. 😂

But, to be fair. we often find such sub-standard coffee locally in the UK. It is therefore possible it’s just an average or below average coffee.

Perhaps, price paid per KG of greens might be useful.

MWJB

LMSC Not sure I have had coffees like this from the UK (excluding Geshas).

InfamousTuba

I have not really had any problems with overseas coffee from maybe 6–7 roasters directly and bags bought from cafes. Some of the bags weren’t to my taste but that is more my own choice than the roasters fault.

You could maybe get in touch with the roaster if you aren’t happy with the coffee you received

MWJB

InfamousTuba I have done this in the past, to no avail - they maintained that the coffee tasted great at the roastery and that it can only be evaluated with cupping as brewing other ways is ‘fraught with issues’ (cupping didn’t reveal anything different to brewing), water also tweaked to match alkalinity etc.

Hence my query as to whether something outside of their control might be playing a part during transit. Other bags from mainland Europe have been fine/typical.

John_Yossarian

MWJB the slightly lower pressure in the cabin/cargo space would drive out any gas left in the bag through the one way valve, so there is no risk for the roasted beans in this case. The cosmic rays that include some high energy electromagnetic waves is something everyone with high air mileage encounters like it or not. I have not heard of a study where the exposure of roasted beans under x-ray has been looked at. One might expect some chemical reactions to take place should the intensity and the time of exposure are too high but realistically thinking this is very unlikely to happen over a flight of several hours.
Your bad encounter can be due to a number of reasons, but I am still on the fence whether this would be the air transport.

Just my 2 p

InfamousTuba

Could be a storage issue, especially with how high the temperatures have been in Spain. If they are sitting in a hot warehouse it could impact it but I wouldn’t have thought that much.

It might be worth naming them if they don’t want to own up to bad coffee, the only roaster I have ordered from in Spain was nomad and I had good coffee from them

MWJB

InfamousTuba It’s more than one roaster, I’m not naming anyone as I can’t rule out a potential outside influence.