FRESHNESS
Do you know when your coffee was roasted?

Coffee is a perishable commodity. You would not think of buying a croissant that has been sitting in a bin for a week, and we feel that the time of buying coffee that languishes in bins or sits on store shelves is passing. The oils that give coffee its flavor are water soluble and oxidize very quickly. Every day that passes between roasting and reaching the customer takes away from the evanescent perfection that is possible in a cup of coffee.

Simply put, rancid coffee does not taste good, nor is it good for you.

Our freshness policy is very simple. We put our coffee into our customer's hands 48 hours or less after roasting. We put the roast date on the back of every bag so that customers know when their coffee was roasted. The differences are not subtle: bigger flavors, more dimensions in the cup, less harshness.

In the case of mail orders, we ship our coffee less than 8 hours after roasting, ensuring that it gets into our customers' hands the next day if they live no more than 50 miles away from Oakland, or usually less than 48 hours after roasting if they live elsewhere on the west coast.