Checking green coffee beans for quality and freshness
High quality and fresh green coffee beans have a pleasant sweet grassy smell and a greenish colour tone, similar to jade. The beans’ shape, size, and colour will vary depending on origin but should be uniform across the batch. Some remainder silver skin (inner parchment layer) may be present, especially on ‘natural’ processed coffee beans. Specialty grade green coffee beans should be virtually free of defects such as malformation, black spots, holes, and have minimal breakage and should contain no foreign material.
Shelf life of green coffee beans
Green coffee beans have a shelf life of two to three years if stored in a sealed container, room temperature (18-22 °C), away from direct sunlight - strong light sources - and relative humidity between 50-60%. Over time, the green coffee beans will naturally lose moisture, aroma, and colour.
Roasting green coffee beans
Roasting coffee at home it is fun and addictive! You can use an oven, a frying pan, a popcorn popper, or a coffee roasting appliance. The method you chose will depend on how much you want to invest and the level of control you want over roasting. Below are some useful websites and community forums dedicated to home-roasting and brewing, which contain a multitude of tips and instructions:
- Home Barista's forum
- Coffee Snobs' forum
- Coffee Geek's forum
- Reddit's /r/Coffee community
- Reddit's /r/Roasting community
Shelf life of roasted coffee beans
Generally speaking, coffee tastes better when consumed within 2-3 weeks of roasting. For light and medium roasts, we recommend consuming within two weeks of roasting. Darker roasts may keep its flavour for a few more weeks.
Storing roasted coffee beans
Store the roasted coffee at room temperature, in a well-sealed, clean, and dry container to preserve its aroma – coffee spoils when exposed to oxygen, water, or heat.
Brazilian green coffee beans classification
When compared to most producing countries’ coffee classification systems, Brazil has a highly detailed and complex one. There is a screen sorting grade, a colour grade, a defects grade (based on number and types of defects), and a flavour grade. The final grading of a coffee is based on the combination of the different scores for each category. Below is an overview of the two main grades – the defects grade and flavour grade.
Defects grade:
| Grade Type | Number of defects per 300g sample | |
| Type-2 | Max 4 secondary defects permitted / No primary defects permitted / Quakers not permitted | This is the best! |
| Type-3 | Max 12 secondary defects permitted / No primary defects permitted) / Max 3 quakers permitted | |
| Type-4 | Max 26 defects including primary and secondary | |
| Type-5 | Max 46 defects including primary and secondary | |
| Type-6 | Max 86 defects including primary and secondary | |
| Type-7 | Max 160 defects including primary and secondary | |
| Type-8 | Max 360 defects including primary and secondary | This is the worst! |
Flavour grade:
| Flavour grade (BR-PT) | Flavour grade (EN) | Flavour description | |
| Estritamente Mole | Strictly soft | Very pleasant, smooth and sweet | This is the best! |
| Mole | Soft | Pleasant, smooth and sweet | |
| Apenas Mole | Soft-ish | Pleasant, smooth and sweet, slight astringent flavour | |
| Duro | Hard | Astringent, rough flavour | |
| Riada | Riada | Astringent, rough, and slight iodine flavour | |
| Rio | Rio | Astringent, rough, and high iodine flavour | |
| Rio Zona | Rio Zona | Repulsive rough iodine and phenolic acid aroma and flavour | This is the worst! |