frozen chosen

it was seventh grade during a physical education class. a friend and i were walking the track on a hot spring morning in texas, discussing some of the pros and cons of hot weather versus cold. my friend, a 'yankee' from upstate new york, opined that he liked cold weather much better than hot because with cold weather, said he, you could always keep piling on more and more layers. but in hot weather, "once you get down to the skin there's not much else you can do." (yes, i still remember those words all these years later.)

i work through those types of deductions sometimes in my own head regarding the state of excellence in coffee and how i can continue to improve in this area or with that process. some areas i've found a good groove: turnaround time for orders placed is very regularly less than 12 hours from order placed to order roasted. often, local deliveries get my sermon on overfreshness--i have to put the brakes on them and remind them that they need to wait a day before enjoying this two hour old coffee.

with the idea of overfreshness in mind i recall that conversation from so many years ago and conclude that there's not much more that can be done on the roasting side of the equation that will get the freshest possible coffee into the hands of my customers. so what other areas can i add "layers" and continue to improve?

it goes without saying that buying quality greens will produce quality browns, all other factors in play being carefully kept in line, such as the basic ticker below:

--storage: temp and temp swings, humidity, packaging, dust, rodent activity, exposure to ultraviolet light, etc.

--transportation considerations: what has happened to those carefully processed coffees in the interim from the mill to your warehouse? on the export dock? on the ship? the import dock? the importer's warehouse? in his delivery truck?

--roasting: the roasting itself can, of course, ruin all the other well-executed steps. as i've mentioned previously, a great discussion is unfolding over at barismo in the comments section of jaime's review of my guatemala finca vista hermosa. (i'm getting my butt handed to me by the pros, is what's happening.)

with those few areas there are worlds upons worlds where quality can be introduced, gained and improved upon.

this post is a call for discussion on storage, and in particular, on freezing as means of preserving peak ripeness. i've heard discussions of it here and there and know that some groups have been doing serious experimentation and implementation for a couple years now (i'd love to read some scientific type results...ahem!).

some parameter questions i've cooked up:

--does water in greens help/hurt the composition when frozen? ice crystals? does the water act as a sort of stabilizer?

--someone i recently read about was deep freezing freshly roasted. huh? benefits/drawbacks of that versus green?

--flash freeze?

--thaw parameters? in bag? how quickly? bean surface moisture/condensation in the thaw? how long before it's roaster ready?

--how do you determine the "peak" at which to freeze? can you, for instance, buy an early new crop, cup it out over a month or two until it "matures" into peak ripeness and then freeze? do you have to wait 'til mid crop ripeness and buy those beans and freeze immediately? can you make any money doing that, because surely then you'd be taking a bunch of extra steps and expense to get it from its grown country to your storage space?

--what is the best material for storage bags? mylar? food grade plastic? doesn't the composition of most materials break down/impart their composition to the beans after a while?

--40F below? i've heard of that. who has that much storage space at that constant temp? don't you stand to create an exhorbitantly huge environmental footprint just keeping that much space cold? how many smallish roasteries have access to that kind of space?

--fridge freezing: others say temps at something more like 0 degrees F will do. is there any consensus? what are the arguments for each?

--will freezing help even the score between super high grown beans and lower altitude beans? since it's generally accepted that density helps preserve flavor better/longer, couldn't freezing help level the playing field and potentially open even more doors for discovering great coffees that are grown lower?

--vacuum: do you vacuum pack bags? create a "near vacuum"? are one-way valves a no-no at such temps?

...and so forth. i'm expecting some good comments here, so bring 'em on. let's keep pushing the envelope. if these questions have been answered by someone, please hopefully we can see some printed materials somewhere.