Coffee and Caffeine FAQ

Aged coffee is held as green coffee in producing countries for an extended time (usually 2-3 years) to allow natural changes to occur. These changes typically include a muting of acidity and improved body. Some defects can also be muted but typically due to the cost of holding the green coffee for an extended period of time the green selected for aging  is of exceptional quality. During the aging process the coffee bags is rotated to allow the coffee to breath and evenly change. 

Aging coffee is a risky proposition for the person aging the coffee since there is not a guarantee that even with utmost care the aged coffee will come out as hoped. The producer can end up with a large quantity of old, bad coffee. 

Aged coffee and old coffee are not the same thing. Old coffee will taste boring and lifeless while aged coffee actually improves (well improves is subjective if you like the flavor it is an improvement) with age. 

Aged coffee will typically start with a coffee that is high in body and low in acidity. The idea is to bring flavor out not create a new flavor. A high acidity coffee will in all likelihood just be old coffee even with great processing technique.

Even good aged coffee can have some funk in the cup and rarely if ever are aged coffees offered as anything other than as part of a blend. In a blend aged coffees can add body of an otherwise light bodied blend without adding undue acidity.

In roasting the coffee needs a longer rest after roasting to fully even out and gain the best taste profile possible. Typically aged coffees taste best at a dark roast which helps to accentuate the body.

Historically due to coffee being shipped in wooden ships that took almost a year to reach the United States much of the coffee coming from outside of the Americas into the United States we either aged or old. Mostly old. But since many of these coffees do fall into the low acidity high body range undoubtedly some of them were probably pretty good. This is where the term Java Old Brown comes from. Since the trip from Java took so long importers became accustomed to seeing brown coffee coming in and actually expected it. Java still produces aged coffee under the old brown name but under much more strict standards than coffee sitting in the hold of a ship for months.