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Comment by salamandersauce | Hacker News Reader

You can absolutely take it to audiophile level but doing something simple like grinding the beans before brewing instead of using pre-ground makes a huge difference. It's like using trash dollar store earbuds vs. a decent pair of headphones. Little bit of effort, huge improvement.

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That, plus finding beans that were roasted in the last couple of weeks instead of having a "best used by" date that is twelve months out. I wish every roaster would switch to a "roasted on" date instead, but the ones that do are doing it right.

The good ones tell you exactly when the beans were roasted. Go mail order and find someone close enough that they arrive in 2-3 days.

In my experience, grocery stores want a best by, not a roast date, so even good roasters will sometimes use a different label when selling through a store vs direct. In one case, I learned the best by date they use is just roast date + 1y.

My local Target has started carrying high(er) end coffee beans — Stumptown, Peets, Blue Bottle, Counter Culture, etc. Interestingly, these bags DO show a roasted date on them. When I eyeballed it, they were all about 5-6 weeks prior, so not straight from the roaster but not horribly old either.

This is often a requirement of grocery stores where they intend to sell it, who don’t want to have stock that isn’t salable after two weeks (it can take the big groceries longer than that to just distribute it to their stores).

Beans produced for supermarkets or chains use the “best before” because it is a relatively long time. The beans might not taste their best but they are safe to use.

Speciality roasters will print a roast date.

James Hoffman just made a video on exactly this topic: https://youtu.be/O9YnLFrM7Fs

Warning: once you start on his videos you may never return.

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