Freezing Green Coffee for Freshness?

I’ve said before that you should never, ever refrigerate or freeze your coffee beans during storage, but Coffee Geek’s latest podcast raises the intriguing question: what about freezing green coffees before roasting?

It’s quite common for green coffees, after having been picked and processed, to sit in warehouses for up to 18 months before being sold to a roaster. Green coffee is fairly sensitive to climate and humidity changes, so if you’re a roaster buying an end-of-season bag, the quality of the coffee will often be noticeably different–particularly if the moisture level has been allowed to fluctuate.

Coffee Geek writer Mark Prince talks about freezing green coffees to stabilize the moisture level. It’s geared more towards the home roaster who buys only a few pounds of green coffee at a time, since freezing a warehouse full of 300lb. jute bags would prove a daunting task. Still, the science of it is something that no one has looked at much before, which is one of the greatest things about this industry–there’s always something new to try, something that invites investigation. Mark talks a little about the science and provides some interesting anecdotes. Check it out, especially if you roast your own.