compounds

It never stops to amaze me when I open a bag of green coffee and see thousands of rock like, emerald, translucent green seeds. In such state they really don’t possess much more than a vegetable smell that ranges from fruity to spices depending on their process and where they came from. As you may know the soil where coffee beans were grown and their varietal will influence their flavor character and aromas. Of course, the real magic happens when coffee beans are finally roasted and they bring out all their organoleptic characteristics which can vary from chocolate like to savory, fruity, etc., you get the idea. As coffee is roasted there are many physical and chemical changes that perhaps you already know about. These changes allow coffee to deliver somewhere around 800 flavor compounds in the form of taste and aromas. Imagine, just to compare, wine is considered a very complex beverage with its 300 about flavor compounds. So all of this is really incredible, how can a simple lifeless seed produce such a complex and delicious nectar of pure joy. While coffee is in its green form flavor deterioration is really slow compared to when it has been roasted. A well stored green coffee will lose its freshness in quite some time. While a freshly roasted coffee really depending on how it is stored and how it was roasted loses its flavor peak very quickly, surely within 45 days.

Ingenious as we humans are, we discover amazing things (like coffee) and invent ways to process them to make the best use out of them. While at the same time creating new conundrums that keep us mind-boggling about solutions. Yes… materials are invented as protective barriers and putting a one way valve is proposed to release the CO2 build up produced at roasting. However, the solution allows us to extend the shelf life of our precious roasted coffee, but not for much longer. I apologize, you have been reading already way to many words and I don’t want to bore you much longer with all the technicalities of materials and processes. You have probably heard it all by now, and you are rushing through this words to get to my point. Ok, well I will try to be short and explain you the theory behind our pressurized aluminum coffee cans.

So, what if instead of releasing all the CO2 contained in freshly roasted coffee beans we where to use it to our advantage? Oxygen is coffee’s ultimate enemy along with the moisture in the environment. CO2 gas also needs to be released from the coffee beans to make our beverage stable in flavor. The release of the gas contained in the roasted coffee will drag out some essential aromas and lipids that are important for a flavorful cup. Also the pressure that the gas exerts in the internal wall of each coffee bean pushes these fatty and tasty oils to its exterior surface. Perhaps, you have noticed on some medium roast coffees that at times they inhibit droplets of oil like a drop of water on their surface. When coffee gets crushed during grinding, these oily substances will end up in some particles but not evenly distributed in the crushed coffee bean. With our unique controlled packing method we are using the CO2 that is usually forced out of coffee and containing it inside the can. This keeps oxygen out of contact with the roasted coffee, while the aluminum container makes a complete anti-moisture barrier protecting the coffee aromas from deterioration. Best of all, the lipids and aromatic compounds are distributed evenly within all the internal walls of the roasted coffee. There is no external exposure of them and this will make for a more structured and defined flavor in the final stage, your cup. Finally, we are capable of extending the shelf life for up to a year from the roasting and packing date. Basically, we create a complete protective negative pressure vault that helps age coffee if the term could apply, resulting in a more intense and unique cup of coffee. An added bonus to our coffee cans is that you still get to enjoy the coffee within the next 45 days from opening, even if that would be a year later from its original roasting date.