Think of Coffee as Fresh Produce

I suppose the rest of that sentence could be “and you won’t go wrong,” or some such other pat phrase, but the point would be the same: As a society, we have been cultivated to think of roasted coffee as bulk dry goods, when we would be better off approaching it more like produce.
Soon after roasting, coffee exhibits enormous complexity of flavor. After a week, that flavor begins to dissipate. After two weeks the most subtle flavor constituents have diminished. And after three weeks, none of the coffee’s natural flavor remains. However, because of the requirements of large-scale industrialized roasting, most coffee takes weeks or even months to get on to store shelves. There are two ways to approach this problem. One is to deliver the coffee within the brief window of time when the coffee is still fresh and flavorful. Another is to mask the natural flavor of the coffee with something more durable. It’s this method which has lead to the popularity (driven more by market necessity than consumer tastes) of dark roast coffees, in which the outside of the bean is partially burnt, leaving a distinct smoky flavor, and artificially flavored coffees. I suspect because of the predominance of the former approach, most Americans have never even had the opportunity to taste coffee that is not either stale, over-roasted or both.

In that market, it can seem fanatical to demand that beans be delivered when they are still fresh, unless people can accept the idea that roasted coffee should be treated as fresh produce. If it’s not too high a bar for lettuce, why not coffee too?