In order to brew coffee, we must grind coffee beans. Not only that, but we must grind them to a size that’s appropriate for our brew method and recipe so we can get all those delicious aromas and flavors we want out of them. Freshly ground coffee is the best at retaining all of those flavors and (especially) aromas, but getting freshly roasted coffee beans ground just before shipping by a roaster with a high quality grinder is pretty great as well.
Pre-ground coffee is what you may pick up in a bag at the store. Pre-ground coffee is convenient, however, if you want to make the ground coffee last then it must be stored in an airtight container. The difference is pre-ground coffee has likely been sitting on a shelf, meanwhile fresh ground coffee is ready to be made and enjoyed. When you brew with fresh ground coffee, you are able to get the most of the flavor compounds since there is less oxidation time which can quickly affect the taste. Take your coffee routine to the next level. Try our freshly roasted coffee grounds and explore new ways to enjoy coffee!
We grind coffee to give our brew water access to more of the bean’s surface are and be able to extract the flavors we love into our cups. Unfortunately, between grinding and brewing, oxygen also has access to all that surface area, and can make our coffee taste stale. But there are ways we can store pre-ground coffee to make it taste as close to freshly-ground coffee as possible, and it’s really the same ways we store whole bean coffee. Our enemies are oxygen, so we store in an airtight container, and light, so we store either in an opaque bag or container or in a cupboard.
While grinding coffee fresh right before brewing will result in fresher, livelier flavors, there are cases where pre-ground coffee is extremely helpful. If you’re traveling to a place where you don’t know the coffee setup, not having to worry about grinding is great. Even if you’re going to a place where a grinder exists, but it’s a blade grinder, coffee pre-ground by a roaster working with an industrial-grade burr grinder is probably going to taste better than unevenly freshly-ground coffee, especially if you can store it in an airtight container before brewing.