The Best Place To Store Ground Coffee, According to Starbucks

Starbucks says store ground coffee in an airtight container at room temperature, where it will stay fresh for a week.

Ground coffee in a jar with a coffee scoop — Simply Recipes / Adobe Stock

Few things smell as sweet, or as nostalgic, as freshly brewed coffee in the morning. Before I drank the beverage myself, I fondly remember the scent of it wafting through the house as my Dad brewed his morning cup of joe.

Fast forward to today, and I am now the one brewing coffee in the morning. While I do switch off between coffee and tea, when coffee’s on the menu, I opt for well-sourced beans and grounds for the most delicious drinking experience possible. And if I have beans on hand, I tend to grind a big batch of them at once for quick, easy brewing on those mornings in the week ahead when I’m half-awake. But with this convenience sometimes comes stale-tasting coffee, despite the quality beans I purchase. In response, I’ve been on the hunt for the best way to store ground coffee.

When I took to the Internet to solve this problem, I found a variety of opinions on best storage methods. I decided to turn to a global coffee authority for the definitive answer on the best place to store ground coffee. Here’s what the experts at Starbucks had to say.

Overhead shot of two glass cups of coffee on a wooden counter top — Simply Recipes / Adobe Stock

The Best Place To Store Ground Coffee, According to Starbucks

When it comes to the storage of most foods, there are three main culprits of spoilage: moisture, light, and oxygen. This rule of thumb goes for ground coffee, too. Coffee contains oils that can go rancid, but technically the product doesn’t expire. The taste of rancid coffee won’t be nearly as acrid as a rancid nut, for example, so the coffee is still drinkable. Still, it won’t offer the fresh flavor you’d get if you had just ground it prior to brewing.

What most often happens with ground coffee is that it can go stale from oxygen exposure, though light and moisture can cause staleness, too. Thankfully, Starbucks suggests strategies that you can employ to prevent this from happening.

While many coffee aficionados recommend storing coffee in the freezer to keep it fresh for a longer period of time, Starbucks disagrees. “Although some believe keeping coffee grounds in a freezer can help maintain the freshness, the opposite is true,” according to the global coffee retailer. “When you store it in the freezer or refrigerator, moisture condenses on the coffee and can extract the flavor.”