We know well that all products should be exclusively fresh, paying close attention to the expiration dates. However, what would you do if you unexpectedly came across a box of your preferred coffee brewing beans in the pantry? Ruthlessly throw away or consume a drink without a shadow of a doubt? In this matter, we will have to deal with you today. So, is it possible to drink expired coffee? What can such a decision threaten?
Expired coffee beans
Raw grains (green coffee)
Such a product has a non-uniform texture and the structure of its grain. It is usually too malleable and crumbles when pressed. But the opposite situation also happens: expired coffee beans become very hard, although they are still inherently fragile.
If we talk about the aroma, the unroasted raw material, called green coffee, either does not have a smell or has a rather unpleasant “palette” of it.
In principle, grains can be safely crushed and brewed despite the lack of flavor and expired shelf life since much coffee does not spoil and does not pose a danger to the human body. However, true connoisseurs will undoubtedly refuse to use expired green coffee. After all, its aroma and taste characteristics leave much to be desired.
It is interesting: despite humankind’s long history of coffee consumption, there have still been no cases of poisoning with expired coffee.
Is it possible to return the taste of expired coffee?
Of course, getting the same taste and aroma as before will not be possible, but you can try to breathe new life into the drink. To do this, you will need:
Fry the green coffee beans. Traditionally, it uses anise, cloves, and cinnamon. They will fill the raw materials with a new armada with an oriental touch. You can also make an intense roasting of the grains. Sufficiently deep heat treatment will allow you to “get” to the remnants of the taste and aroma of raw materials.
Note: if you prefer to buy green coffee and then bring it to mind yourself, then you need to know that the shelf life of such raw materials is five years.
And what to do with roasted grains?
Can be stored Coffee beans in high-quality, sealed packaging for 12 months. Suppose we are talking about vacuum packaging, the shelf life increases by another six months. However, he also has a critical deadline. Like other varieties of natural grains, such coffee does not become unusable immediately after the onset of the “X” day. Nevertheless, it slowly loses its raw flavor, and its taste characteristics “fade.”
Note: if we are talking about coffee in an unopened package, you can safely drink it after the deadline.
How to recognize spoiled roasted coffee?
You might find it helpful to learn the most obvious signs that the grains have gone wrong:
- Pronounced oily sheen;
- The color is too dark;
- A faint aroma, which is by sour notes of stale coffee oil.
It is essential to understand that such grains cannot please you with a bright taste or a stimulating effect (for which most of us drink coffee in the early morning). Unlike green coffee, it is simply impossible for such a product to return (at least partially) its natural properties.
It is interesting: if you part with your favorite drink, you can use it for decorative purposes or children’s crafts. And women may well use roasted coffee beans as the dominant component of a home cosmetic body scrub.
If we talk about freshly roasted grains stored in non-traditional packaging, the situation is precisely the same. That’s just the shelf life they have, a little less. An expired drink has a life span of 2 weeks or more. After 6-8 weeks, a glass based on such coffee beans can no longer please the coffee connoisseur with anything means that keeping coffee around, much less consuming it, is illogical.
Expired ground coffee: should I throw it away or drink it?
It must say that the shelf life of packaged and freshly ground coffee is significantly different. Ground coffee beans in high-quality, sealed packaging for one year. Shorter period on the package, but the integrity package has not. You can safely drink the drink for 12 months.
It is essential to know: that the expiration date, which various manufacturers indicate on coffee packages, is when the product retains its original taste properties and characteristics as much as possible. If a parcel of expired ground coffee has been lying in your kitchen cabinet for three years, you can still prepare a drink based on the product. But it should clarify that the quality of the crushed raw materials may suffer from long-term storage. Both its taste and aroma will become much weaker.
If we are talking about a product in vacuum packaging, you should know you can store that coffee for over three years. As a rule, caring manufacturers deliberately indicate a shorter shelf life (the most common option is 18 and 24 months). All this time, the aroma and flavor of freshly ground coffee beans have been the same. After then, they fade away little.
It should be as early as possible if we are discussing freshly ground coffee. Traditionally, experts advise doing this within 14 days. But few people know that it “can extend the life of a drink.” To do this, pack it in foil and then in an opaque container with a tightly closed lid. With this storage method, ground coffee will lose its properties and taste characteristics much faster.
If the coffee is hermetic, its life span will be exactly one month. After this critical period, it loses more than 90% of its properties. Taste and aroma, we are talking about the ability of a coffee drink to charge with cheerfulness and give a surge of strength.
Of course, you can use it. After all, I will not get poisoned. But we don’t think it’s worth it. After all, it will be a deception of oneself. Think for yourself, do you want to drink tinted water with a subtle coffee note?
What to do with expired instant coffee?
To get at the answer, you need to grasp what happens to soluble raw materials when they reach their expiration date. The shelf life is two years. After that, it does not deteriorate but only loses the peculiarities of its taste and smell.
The latter should be in more detail. It is that aromatic compounds gradually disintegrate (due to oxidative processes). This instant coffee contains many chemical components, so the process of losing taste characteristics is much slower. Therefore, we can safely say that we can use a high-quality, hermetically sealed package with instant coffee for its intended purpose in three years.
Interestingly, there have been cases when soluble granules, even five years after manufacture, gave a good solution with a natural coffee smell and quite a good taste. It is also necessary to tell whether drinking coffee stored in an unpressurized jar is possible. You could get by on this soluble beverage for a few months. Then its taste and aroma will gradually “fade.”
If, as an experiment, you decide to brew instant coffee, you with a solution of an incomprehensible dark color with a bitter taste. It’s impossible to predict the results of using soluble granules that have. If you think about it logically, then none. And although you are not in danger of an eating disorder and poisoning, it isn’t easy to imagine how chemical compounds can behave under long-term storage conditions. Regardless, it is not something we advise you to do.
Let’s talk about coffee capsules.
This kind of drink is still a novelty, but we will try to tell you whether it is possible to use expired capsules.
The first thing to remember is that, depending on the manufacturer, coffee capsules can last anywhere from 9 to 24 months. The main feature of tablets is their practicality and the presence of individual sealed packaging—each portion of the divine drink in ideal conditions.
Think for yourself: lack of air, protection from sunlight, and moisture. You can only dream about it. At the same time, even after removing the capsule from the general package, it remains protected from the effects of adverse external factors.
This type of coffee, tightness of its packaging, can be consumed even after the expiration of the official expiration date.
Important: it is not by chance that we emphasize the tightness of the capsule. After all, a punctured or damaged coffee capsule loses its taste characteristics and aroma, taking no more than two days.
What threatens the use of expired coffee
Indeed, while reading the article, you have repeatedly had a question: so what is the danger of coffee, the official expiration date of which has long expired? Let’s try to figure it out.
This drink does not directly affect your health. After all, there is no confirmation of cases of poisoning or adverse reactions after drinking expired coffee.
Though grains (as well as powder) lose their taste and aroma expiration date, you need to understand that this process does not happen at the click of your fingers. In fairness, it must say that beans last a little longer than ground coffee. Instant “fades” the fastest.
As time goes on, the amount of caffeine in coffee goes down. Because of this, drinks made with ingredients that have passed their prime often don’t have the same stimulating effect.
Remember: expired coffee is with additives. We are talking not only about traditional varieties – sugar, milk, and cream, but also various spices and spices. Also, the addition of syrups can help to revive the taste range of the drink. We recommend you try coffee with chocolate and vanilla toppings. They are the best way to add to stale coffee. After all, these varieties of syrups have a good taste and no less bright aroma.
To summarize. Expired coffee does not pose a danger to human health. However, it cannot be called tasty enough. Therefore, we recommend that true coffee lovers not forget the coffee in the kitchen cabinet.
Recall that in the material on how to store coffee properly, we talked in detail about how we should keep the raw materials fresh for as long as possible. We advise you to purchase a package of coffee in such a way that you use an open pack for 1, a maximum of two weeks. For example, drinking coffee twice a day will be enough to buy a group of coffee with a volume of 250 grams.
