When it comes to buying coffee for freshness, the best tip anyone can give you by far is to buy your beans green and roast the beans yourself. Green beans will keep for a very long time and they will not loose any of their freshness until they've been roasted. You also have the highest degree of control over the darkness of the roast when you roast your own beans, which mean you control almost every aspect of the flavor of your coffee.

You should keep in mind when roasting your coffee however that you should allow 24 hours after your beans have been roasted before grinding and brewing them. You should also keep in mind that maximum freshness will only last about 7 days from the original roasting. For maximum flavor you do not want to roast more coffee beans than you can consume in the next seven days. You also do not want to grind more than two days worth of beans at a time as ground coffee beans will only remain fresh about that long.

It is perfectly understandable if you do not wish to deal with the hassle of roasting your own coffee beans each week. If you must purchase coffee beans that have already been roasted your best bet is to find a local retail establishment that specializes in coffee. Most grocery store beans have been sitting in cargo containers for longer than they will have been fresh. At a small local coffee house you can often find out from the owner when the beans you are considering for purchase were roasted.

Once you’ve purchased your coffee beans you should keep them in an airtight container in a cool, dark, and dry place. You do not want to store your coffee beans in a freezer because it damages the coffee bean and absorbs the odors and flavors of other things in your freezer. Yum! You should also avoid refrigerating your coffee beans for the same reason.

If you have coffee that appears to be oily or doesn’t have quite the aroma you would expect, it is quite likely that your coffee beans are a little past their prime. Some coffee beans will actually have a slight stench that can be rather unpleasant if it ages too terribly long. The suggestion in these instances is to toss the coffee and find some newer beans as quickly as possible.

There are those who are perfectly comfortable with store purchased, pre-ground coffee. There is no real harm in that though there is little that can be said about the quality of coffee they are drinking or about the richness of flavor. We live in a world where our differences are our strengths however and storage of these coffees should be treated much like the storage of freshly roasted and/or ground coffee beans. You need to store them in cool, dark, dry spaces in airtight containers in order to preserve the maximum possible freshness and flavor. The important thing to remember is that no matter what your preference your goal is the freshest possible cup of coffee to begin each and every day.