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Coffee and tea
All Containers›Shop by use case›Coffee and tea›Staling›Moisture and absorbed smellsShop all coffee and tea →
Staling

Moisture and absorbed smells

By Dwight Davis, Founder

Updated

On this page7
Coffee and tea are both sponges for water and for smell, which makes the storeroom as much a part of the product as the package.

They pull moisture from the air

Both are dry and hygroscopic, so in a humid room they gain moisture continuously through any package that is not a real barrier. That ruins the texture of ground coffee, accelerates staling, and in a tea blend with dried fruit it can produce clumping and eventually mold.

They absorb aroma just as readily

Tea is notorious for this and coffee does it too. Stock stored near spices, cleaning chemicals, scented blends or anything strongly aromatic will take on the smell, and it is not recoverable. A separate storeroom for scented products is the only real answer.

Which makes the storeroom a specification

Dry, cool, dark, and free of strong smells, with scented and unscented stock kept apart. That is a short list and it is the difference between a product that reaches the customer as you made it and one that does not.

Open bulk containers are the weak point

A canister opened repeatedly at a refill counter is exposed to whatever is in the room every time, and over a day that is a lot of exposure. A gasketed lid that is actually closed between uses is doing more work than the material of the container.

Freezing is a real option and an easy one to get wrong

Frozen storage slows staling, and taking a container in and out repeatedly condenses water onto cold coffee every time. If you freeze, freeze in portions you will use entirely, and let a portion reach room temperature before opening it.

Tell the customer the three rules

Cool, dry, closed, away from strong smells. A line on the package costs nothing and prevents most of the complaints that arrive about a product that was fine when it left you.

References

21 CFR 101, Food Labeling, which carries the general requirements that apply here in the absence of a standard of identity: the statement of identity, net quantity, ingredient list and the name and place of business of the responsible party. law.cornell.edu
Written from federal regulation and from the published physics and chemistry of staling, not from a laboratory. There is no standard of identity for coffee or tea, so most of what governs a product here is the general requirement that labels be truthful and claims be substantiated. Anything here is a starting point for a conversation with your state department of agriculture, not a determination that you comply.