Few things lift the human spirit quite like the aroma of freshly ground coffee. In fact, freshly ground is probably the largest contributing factor to making good coffee, even more important than freshly roasted, and even an expensive coffee machine. So if you really love your coffee, and want it to taste anywhere near as good as in a café, here’s 3 good reasons to buy a coffee grinder and save a lot of money.
1. There’s almost a million reasons fresh ground coffee tastes and smells better!
Grind coffee goes stale super-fast. Like all foods, the compounds that give coffee its flavour and aroma degrade when expose to moisture and oxygen in the air. Exposure is actually minimal within the first 24 hours from roasting, as the coffee aggressively expels Carbon Dioxide, effectively forcing away any surrounding oxygen. Thereafter, this degassing process tapers off for a further 11 or so days, thereafter beginning to degrade. This is why coffee bags bulge fresh from roasting. As degassing tapers off, the beans become more exposed to oxygen and degradation accelerates. Whole bean coffee will remain fresh for:
- Approximately 3 months from roasting in its original sealed packaging.
- 2-3 weeks once opened and stored in an airtight container.
- Less than 1 week when stored in a poorly sealed container.
- MOST IMPORTANTLY, less than 1 day from grinding.
1 million reasons to grind fresh for more flavour.
When coffee is ground into fine particles, the aroma immediately dissipates, as the coffee is hyper exposed. There are approximately 100-120 coffee beans being ground into a double espresso (c. 18g). This equates to roughly 1-1.20 million espresso ground coffee particles per dose. In simple terms, the espresso ground coffee is more than 10000x more exposed than whole bean and thereby loses its flavour and aroma that much quicker. When sealed in a bag, it merely stores the aroma in the bag, which immediately dissipates on opening the bag. Thereafter, the little freshness that was retained is lost and rapidly goes stale leaving you with less than half the fragrance and flavour.
2. A coffee grinder is a really good value investment, approximately R6-R8 per cup!
A good coffee grinder offers way more value than just an over-priced air freshener.
Coffee is expensive nowadays costing anything from R400 per kg. Pre-ground coffee discounts the flavour you get from that coffee by 60-80%!
That’s a significant waste given the cost and effort it takes to grow, process, transport, roast and package your coffee. Grinding fresh allows all the flavour you purchased to end up in your cup, rather than only 40-20% of it.
If you pay R100 for a 250g bag of coffee, effectively your loosing R60-R80 rand in flavour value retaining only R40-R20 of its value. Grinding fresh will pay for a grinder in 6 months to 1 year, whilst giving you 60-80% more enjoyment.
To try and value these “flavour savings”, assume grinding fresh preserves even just half of your R400/kg coffee’s flavour. At 20g per cup for espresso, or 15g per cup for plunger, your flavour savings would be R8 per cup of espresso and R6 per cup of plunger. If you’re drinking 2 cups per day, you’re saving R480 per month for espresso and R5760 per year. For a plunger, you’d save R360 per month and R4320 per year. Based on these conservative estimates (50% flavour savings versus 60-80%), at only 2 cups a day you’d pay off a top class grinder in under 1 year. More realistically, at 4 cups per day, half a year. If you’re buying premium coffee, you will more than likely half that payback period again. That’s a very good investment given the price of coffee nowadays.
For a true coffee lover, a coffee grinder is so much more than a money saver. It’s the enjoyment you get from the aroma and full flavour of a fresh coffee, in the comfort of your home that is truly priceless.
3. You can save more than R6000 a year money versus Nespresso, and more than R10000 a year versus the café.
Freshly ground versus Nespresso capsules.
If you’re a Nespresso drinker, grinding fresh will save you a whopping R8.60 per cup (@ R110 for 10 x 6g capsules=R11 per cup) when compared to grinding fresh R400per kg = R2.40 per cup.
At 2 cups p/day, that’s a saving of R17.20 p/day, which is R516 p/month and R6192 per year! And that’s not taking into account the flavour savings you get from freshly ground coffee and the enjoyment of more flavour and aroma.
Freshly ground at home versus the café.
Assuming the same economics as above, if you compare the cost of a homemade coffee to your local coffee shop, you’re likely to save between R25-R30 per cup on the coffee alone (excl. milk, takeaway cup). @1 cup a day, that’s R750-R900 a month and R9000 – R10800 a year, enough to purchase a top end espresso grinder. We’re not suggesting your local is overpriced, or that you should fully replace it. In fact, café coffee in South Africa is significantly cheaper than other countries. This is merely a cost per cup comparison to show the affordability of a coffee grinder and to point out that you could be enjoying cafe quality coffee at home, and save a lot of money.
In fact, if you don’t own a coffee grinder, don’t waste your money buying pre-ground coffee, rather drink at your local cafe.
4. Conclusion, More flavour, more savings. Who should consider buying a coffee grinder?
If you drink coffee mainly for the caffeine hit, and don’t care too much for flavour, you won’t need to buy a coffee grinder. Stale coffee won’t harm you and retains its caffeine content over time.
If you drink coffee for the flavour, you really only have two options: freshly ground or drink at a coffee shop or cafe. With a good coffee grinder you can enjoy café quality coffee at home and funding your café coffee for the occasional extra special treat.
If you’re an espresso drinker, you simply must own a very good coffee grinder. We’d argue that the quality of the grinder is more important that the machine. Espresso extraction is very particular and varies from coffee to coffee requiring a very good quality grinder.
For bean to cup drinkers, you’re halfway there. The problem with most bean to cup machines. The quality of the grinders in bean to cup machines are mostly inferior, producing very average to poor quality coffee, although the convenience is unmatched.
If you’re a Nespresso drinker, grinding fresh will radically improve your coffee experience and save you a ton of money.
A good coffee grinder can last you a lifetime and they require very little maintenance. For home use, burrs should be cleaned once every couple of months and replaced only every 2 years.
The other benefits are enabling multiple brew methods. Pre-ground coffee from the shelf will most likely be a medium grind, which is typically too course for espresso, too fine for filter. Grinding it at the roastery will get you closer to the required grind, but then you lose 60-80% of the freshness of flavour. Owning your own grinder allows you to maximise flavour for a wide range of brew methods, like pour over, moka pot, AeroPress and espresso.
For true coffee lovers, whether it saves you money, trips to the café, a coffee grinder is a great investment and radically enriches your coffee experience.