Although these bins are less common in grocery stores now, they still hang on in patchouli scented health food stores, and in nearly every grocery store I’ve seen for the display and dispensation of coffee. If you buy your coffee at the grocery store, I know you know exactly what I’m talking about. There, shining in the distance is a shelving display stacked 6 across and down filled with what you believe to be fresh coffee. You get closer, and notice that almost every container’s front surfaces is a greasy brown textured mess as the beans have created etched in goober streaks as a few ounces of coffee are emptied out into your awaiting paper-ish bag. Usually accompanying this display is a grinder that lets you destroy your coffee even further as you select a grind from “drip” to “ Turkish” at the turn of the dial. How convenient. You scamper off happy with your fresh, bulk food purchase.

Let me tell you what you’ve just paid $11.95 for…

Let’s just back up to the facts about proper coffee storage. Coffee’s mortal enemies are light, air, and moisture. To properly store coffee, it must be in an airtight, opaque container at room, or slightly below, temperature. These bins have everything going wrong for them. They’re not airtight, opaque or moisture barriers (that being the least of the possible problems in this storage situation…but we’ll skip that tangent). The worst of the situation is that they’re almost NEVER clean. That chunky brown greasy front is the coffee’s oils building up on the surface as week after week, the beans are left to grow old and stale. There are 2 reasons that coffee oils are on the surface of the bean. Reason 1- the coffee was roasted very dark, and the oils emerged from inside the bean to the surface. Reason 2- the coffee is old, because as any degree of roast ages, the oils migrate to the surface.

Caked on coffee oils and residue. Yuck!

This Grocery store bin display actually has an OPEN 5 lb bag of beans sitting atop the display itself.

I can almost promise you that it’s likely that you’re not in the presence of freshly roasted dark, oily beans when staring into the tempting little box of coffee in a miniature peep-show of sorts. The reality is that it’s more likely that those coffees are weeks or months old. They arrived from the roaster in a bulk 5 pound bag, and the grocery store stock boy poured the next “fresh” batch onto the remnants of the last order. I’m merely guessing here, and I don’t know what the grocery store protocol is to clean those bins, but the reality is that there’s usually so much gunk built up inside those little boxes that you can see it from isle 4. What’s the problem with coffee oil? When coffee oil comes in contact with oxygen, the process of rancidification begins within 45 minutes. Once rancid, oils boast unpleasant noxious odors and flavors. Ever had rancid butter? I rest my case.

The only time I’d buy coffee out of an open bin or container is if I visited the roaster’s shop, and that morning’s coffees were displayed for sale just like a baker has today’s fresh breads out. You ask for your fresh beans, and get a 12 oz bag that you’ll immediately place in your countertop airtight canister when you arrive home..just like you’d put the ice cream into the freezer when you arrive home (read carefully here…Ice cream in freezer, Coffee at room temperature). At the store, you’re much better off buying something that’s sold in an airtight bag, as long as you can figure out how old it is. Don’t waste your money on anything that you can’t finish up within 2 weeks of the roasting date. Buying anything other than that? You’re just spending your money on “day olds” so to speak. The bummer is the store isn’t giving you the “day old” price.

Dispenser loaded with rancid oils and caked on gunk—Stay away!

Within 15 minutes of arriving at the coffee importer�s office, I was already nose deep in coffee having my �taste receptors calibrated� by my guide and expert in the coffee import business, Craig. As Craig put it, he wanted to be sure that I was able to detect general flavors in the same way that he did so that we would speak the same language when it came to coffee and the desired direction I wanted to take with my offerings. I was a little nervous to say the least, as I wondered what would happen if I couldn�t taste what I�m supposed to? What if he says it tastes like oranges, but I think it tastes like cheese? Even worse, not orangey-cheese? I can�t drop my parents a note to tell them that I�d like to trade my sense of taste and smell in for something more genetically correct, can I?

Luckily, I didn�t have to worry, and the little challenge showed that I was living on the same planet as he was (albeit he described flavors in amazing sentences of poetry, while I used broken units of food descriptors that came to mind while imagining the food in my kitchen). At the end of the day, after tasting more, test roasting, tasting, combining, and tasting again, we had my coffee blends figured out! The next day I worked with the in-house roasting specialist to try to roast my own coffees. We did roast after roast all morning to watch how each coffee from different origins changed and behaved while being roasted, and tried different batch sizes to understand the nuances of the roasting machine�s performance. By lunch time, we had all my coffees on the table to taste, with a coffee tailored to almost every coffee drinker. There was the fruity cheery morning coffee, the rich and earthy coffee, the darker bad boy coffee, the green planet eco-happy coffee, and the decaff from that same family. A few of you have already tasted the samples I brought back, and I can�t wait to hear how they tasted to you!

While taking a quick break for lunch, a man entered the front office of the importer. Someone in the group around the lunch table said �we�ve hired you a boy, and he�s here now�. I practically choked down my bite in confusion as I flashed on the story that Craig had told me earlier about some men he was working with from Central America who ordered up some �ladies� as a kind gesture once while on a trip to coffee origin. Needless to say, on that trip the offer was graciously declined, but luckily for me, I didn�t need to do the same, as it was actually the experienced barista there to train me�.phew. I spent the afternoon pulling shot after shot after shot out of the espresso machine, followed by milk foaming pitcher after pitcher after pitcher. By the end of the day, I could create an espresso shot with the perfect red-brown crema on top, and pair it with a velvety smooth pour of milk. I�ll still be practicing every day to get as good as he was at the little �rosetta� on top, but luckily, I have access to a lot of coffee and milk.

On my way back to the airport, my car was filled with the amazing aroma of freshly roasted coffee, and a real satisfaction in having learned more than I knew when I came. If you can believe it, I didn�t plug in my GPS to guide me back. She told me how to get there, but I wanted to get back without her help. It was a fitting end to a great learning experience for me as I pulled in to the car rental return area. My amazing teachers and guides showed me the road, gave me a map, and have sent me on my way. I�ll surely seek their help again in the future, but for now I�ve been cut loose to explore on my own with my new bag of tricks.

Feeling victorious over the television, I walked back to my treadmill and stepped on. Not a one-hundredth of a second passed, and my right leg shot back as though I was pulling off the latest hip-hop move. My chin blew past the control monitor and hit the moving mill. My left leg made some attempt to stop the situation, which put me in a holding pattern that allowed a sharp burning sensation, caused by the 8 mph rubber, to push up my gym shorts and dive into my skin. At this point I let loose a complete chick-scream just in time to ensure that all my fellow gym-goers could see me land on the floor between my possessed treadmill and the one next to it. All of this took probably less than 2 seconds to transpire. In another 2, every person within earshot ran over while trying to choke back their giggles. �Are you OK?� �Oh my gosh!� �Wow that looked like it hurt!�

�I�m fine�, I was able to say. I forced a smile, and completely laughed out loud at myself, convincing everyone around me that I didn�t need an ambulance. As they scampered back to what they had been doing, I got up and appropriately mounted the moving treadmill this time. I winced to myself as I felt the full effect of the burning on my right thigh, and thought �you moron, pay attention for Christ sake!� I gimp-jogged for another minute or two before the pain subsided and the crowd stopped talking about me. My embarrassment found a way leave the room, and I couldn�t help by laugh. That was fricking funny.

Lesson learned? Get on the moving treadmill with two hands gripping the bars and start running in mid air before your legs even hit the ground. This is how every day has been bringing the business on-line. Full run�.no stopping. So many things have attempted to throw me off the back of the treadmill so far that I feel like I�m on the commando-mill on some episode of The Biggest Loser with the crazy uber-fit trainer chick throwing darts at my head and swinging chains at my feet. I�m jumping, ducking, sprinting, getting low, and swaying sideways. I haven�t fallen off yet, and every day I seem to get better at multitasking way outside my comfort zone.

Next week I am going to take a trip to visit the coffee importer I�ve selected as my supplier. We are going to spend the time trying different fresh green coffees imported from around the world that we�ll test roast to come up with the perfect offerings, whether they are blends of multiple coffees or from single origins. I�m going to expand my knowledge of �cupping� (you might remember that�s �tasting�) so I can get better at picking out flavors and aromas in the roasted coffee. In addition, I�m going to spend some time learning how to extract the perfect espresso shot and foam milk. Hey, what girl doesn�t need to know how to make great foam? Don�t worry, I�ll remember�.two hands on and hit the ground running.