To achieve good flavor, we should choose freshly roasted coffee beans—this is a consensus we reached long ago; based on experience, when coffee beans are in the "too fresh" stage (0–2 days after roasting), we will "rest" them, i.e., leave them untouched, and wait for them to degas slightly before brewing and extracting, so the coffee's flavor will be better.

But recently, Front Street Coffee noticed another method used to "solve coffee being too fresh," which is to pre-grind the coffee beans into powder and leave them at room temperature for several tens of minutes, or even a whole day, to accelerate degassing. This allows the coffee to release flavor substances more evenly during extraction, and everyone calls this method "awakening the grounds."

Why "awaken the grounds"?

Front Street Coffee has mentioned in many articles that coffee beans undergo a series of chemical and physical reactions during roasting, which we can collectively call "Maillard reaction," including allowing each bean to store a large amount of carbon dioxide. Right after coming out of the roaster, coffee beans carry a pungent, irritating roasted smell, and the internal gas is very active. If brewed at this time, the gas will continuously emerge as hot water is poured into the coffee bed, thereby hindering extraction, and flavor substances will also be difficult to dissolve out. That is why the term "resting the beans" appeared.

But sometimes, coffee beans are still in an "extremely fresh" state, such as just after roasting or only 1–3 days after roasting, and we are eager to taste them, but we do not want extraction to be affected by active gas. Some people then proposed the concept of "awakening the beans," which means taking the coffee beans out of the bag or directly opening the seal, letting them come into direct contact with air, thereby speeding up the release of carbon dioxide. The specific awakening time depends on the condition and use of the coffee beans, usually ranging from a few hours to 1 day.

But after all, coffee beans are a complete individual and still have an airtight structure, so carbon dioxide can only be released slowly. Therefore, when they are exposed to air for too long, the coffee beans may absorb odors or moisture. So someone thought of pre-grinding to accelerate the release of carbon dioxide, thereby eliminating this part ofthe interference of gas.

Do well-rested coffee beans still need to be "awakened"? How to correctly "awaken the grounds"?

At this point, it is not hard to see that whether it is "resting" or "awakening," these are all methods we resort to when facing very fresh coffee beans. That is to say, if the coffee beans have already gone through several days of degassing, there is no need to intervene with "awakening." For example, the coffee beans shipped by Front Street Coffee are all roasted within 5 days, and adding the time spent on logistics, the beans everyone receives are usually 3–5 days after roasting. If you want to experience the coffee's good state (freshness), then you can start enjoying it.

But if the coffee beans in your hands were roasted within 3 days, and after grinding they have a very obvious pungent smell or roasted smell, or the brewed coffee even carries a full dry sensation, then it is most likely caused by the beans being too fresh. At this time, "awakening the grounds" is inevitably a relatively efficient emergency measure.

But we should know that after coffee beans are ground into powder, their surface area will be more than a thousand times greater than before, and the finer the grind, the greater the increase in surface area. Studies have shown that within one and a half minutes after coffee beans are ground into powder, nearly 70% of the gas inside has already been released. Therefore, using the "awakening the grounds" method carries certain risks, because although it helps us speed up degassing, it also causes the aromatic substances in the coffee to volatilize faster as well. A slight carelessness can make the result not worth the loss.

In this regard, Front Street Coffee suggests that when "awakening the grounds," we should try not to be too aggressive and can adjust based on aroma. For coffee beans that are "too fresh," we first grind them into powder andcover them to prevent foreign objects from falling in, then leave them at room temperature for 5–20 minutes. Smell once every 4–5 minutes to feel the changes at each stage, until the smell emitted by the coffee grounds gradually changes from pungent and irritating to clear and gentle; then we can start brewing.

The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.