The Right Way to Freeze Coffee, According to a Starbucks Barista

There are many, many tips out there for keeping coffee grounds as fresh as possible. I worked in the biz as a Starbucks barista, and it’s even hard for me to keep up! Especially when my former employer has flip-flopped on one key tip. (More about that below.) But that said, there are a few basic tips I still follow and stand by. One of which is that if you’re going to use your coffee within a week or so, you don’t need to freeze it. Just keep it in an opaque, airtight container to protect it from light and oxygen (two of the three things that can diminish the flavor of your coffee).

The third element that can degrade coffee’s flavor is moisture, and here’s where we get into the flip-flop of it all. Currently the Starbucks website says you should not store coffee in the freezer, but when I worked there 20 years ago the advice we were instructed to give was that you could store it in the freezer (with one big caveat): When you take coffee out of the freezer, it needs to stay out to prevent moisture from building up inside the bag. So, why the flip-flop? I can’t say for sure, but I suspect Starbucks knew that most people would forget that tiny — but very important — detail, so it was easier and safer to say, don’t put it in the freezer at all. And because their airtight bags keep beans fresh for 34 weeks, there really was no need anyway.

So, while officially saying “don’t freeze your coffee” is probably the right thing to do and the ideal scenario for the freshest coffee, ideal scenarios aren’t always the most practical. For instance, I don’t drink coffee anymore, but when I have guests over, I will buy some to serve at breakfast. I always end up with half a pound extra, at least, and it feels wasteful to throw it away. So, I put it in a zipper-lock freezer bag, followed by a second zipper-lock freezer bag, and toss it in the freezer. I do this knowing that the next time I pull it out it won’t be going back in — it’s use it or lose it. 

• Don’t freeze coffee unless you need to. If it already comes in an airtight bag, don’t open it until you’re ready to use it. Leave it sealed, and put it in a zipper-lock freezer bag for a little extra insurance. 
• If you do need to freeze it, double up on bags. If the coffee is not packaged in an airtight bag, squeeze as much air out of it as possible, then put it in two zipper-lock freezer bags, Russian doll-style. This might be overkill, but I sort of think of it like wrapping something multiple times with plastic wrap — at worst it couldn’t hurt, and at best it might add a bit more protection from the elements.
• Place coffee in the freezer strategically. Keep ground coffee surrounded by other longer-term freezer items so it stays as insulated as possible when the freezer door is opened and shut to retrieve other items.
• Freeze coffee in the portions you think you’ll use it in. You can divide coffee grounds up into multiple airtight packages if you’d like to spread them out a bit over time.