Storing coffee properly is one of the best things you can do to improve the taste of your espresso, or coffee. There is nothing worse than a flat shot of espresso, especially when you paid a decent amount to get great quality beans. So to pay for that single origin, and to end up with a flat lifeless cup of coffee, is something that nobody wants.
In this article we are reviewing the best coffee canisters on the market for the freshest beans possible. We aren’t going into too much details on how to store coffee beans, we have a dedicated article for that. We will simply list the best coffee canisters on the market, so you can find your match.
We promise you’ll get a nice surprise, which will probably be a little anticlimactic, especially if you are ready to spend some money.
While coffee storage is not as simple as buying a coffee canister, (read the article I mentioned above), this is the easiest step to keep your coffee beans fresh for longer. When you pull an espresso shot, you should get a nice layer of crema, and the article shows you the best way to preserve your beans.
What Makes a Great Coffee Canister?
Not all coffee containers are the same. In fact, many of the jars you find marketed as a coffee container, are simply repurposed general use food containers. Some of them are not even airtight.
So, what are we looking for when we buy a coffee container?
A coffee storage container should be airtight, ideally to create a vacuum, and depending on where you keep the jar, should be opaque, so that light doesn’t reach the beans.
If you keep the jar in a dark place, glass containers are acceptable. Heck, a mason jar with the lid would do the trick. That’s if you need to keep things on a tight budget. And only if you keep the jar in a dark place.
If you have a a budget to spend on a proper coffee storage, we recommend the vacuum coffee canister, which will keep the beans fresh for the longest time. This will ensure that your perfect espresso beans will stay the freshest possible for longer.
If you are keeping your bean jar on the kitchen counter, stay away from glass canisters, because beans don’t like sun light exposure.
Ignore the CO2 valve mention. The CO2 valve does nothing to preserve coffee freshness. Sometimes is mentioned in the product description as a feature that will prolong the freshness of your coffee. The one way valve is useful for coffee bags, which on occasion might explode when we pack very fresh beans. Adding a CO2 valve to a canister might even make things worse, since most of them are cheaply made and can leak air in.
Coffee Canister Storage Space – Volume to Weight
I found that a lot of people get confused about the storage space in a coffee canister. So much so, that even though they like the product they bough they feel cheated when they see how much small the container is, compared to what they thought.
Manufacturers give the container measurements in volume, because this is the only valid measurement. You can’t tell how heavy the coffee is, because depending on the origin and the roast, the weight/volume ratio can differ considerably.
Darker roasted beans will be lighter, and larger, because the more we roast the more the beans swell. In contrast, lighter roasted beans will be heavier and will take less space in the container.
Best Coffee Storage on the Market
Most of the coffee canisters on the market aren’t worth. If you are looking to buy a cheap canister that will extend the shelf life of your beans dramatically, you are going to be disappointed. The resealable bags with a one way valve you get from the roaster are pretty decent. They compete with many coffee storage canisters, and they don’t cost anything. And if you don’t hate the resealing process every time you take out beans, they are pretty good.
The only canisters that are better than the bags, are the vacuum-sealed ones. When you have a vacuum seal, much of the air in the jar is removed, and your content doesn’t have any oxygen to react with.
Good canisters hold the vacuum seal longer, up to a few days. The not so great ones hold the seal for a bout a day, which is actually what most of us need. We need that vacuum to hold from one day to the next, when we have to open the coffee jar anyway, to brew some joe.
There is the occasional need to store coffee for longer time, but if that’s the case, you are better off storing it in the freezer.
But let’s get to the point of the article and review some coffee canisters. If you are in a hurry, here is the winner: Fellow Atmos Vacuum Coffee Container.
Airscape Coffee Canister
This is a great coffee canister, and it’s greatly rated on Amazon, except it is not vacuum-sealed. We thought it’s worth mentioning for those who just need an airtight container, and not necessarily a vacuum sealed one.
What this canister does, is to remove all of the excess air between the beans and the lid. It does that with the help of a two way valve in the lid. This is a pretty good option, if you open your jar on a daily basis, but as I mentioned before, the bag from your roaster has the same performance, but it is slightly less convenient.
