Harvest, Roast, Rest: The Three Dates That Decide How Your Coffee Tastes

Look on a bag of supermarket coffee and you'll find a “best before” date — usually a year or two out. It's close to meaningless. Coffee doesn't spoil like milk; it fades. What actually decides how your cup tastes comes down to three other dates: when the coffee was harvested, when it was roasted, and how long it has rested since. Here's what each one does.

1. The harvest date — how old is the green coffee?

Coffee is a fruit, picked in a seasonal harvest. Before it's ever roasted it sits as green (raw) coffee — and green coffee ages. “Current crop” beans, within roughly a year of harvest, keep their full character: the bright acidity, the fruit, the sweetness. As green coffee slips past a year — “past crop” — those top notes flatten first. Old green can turn woody, papery or faintly baggy, and no amount of skilful roasting fully brings it back.

This is why coffee from a serious roaster tastes more alive than a year-old supermarket bag: the green was fresher to begin with. We buy current-crop coffee and roast through it while it's at its best — so what you taste is the harvest as the farmer intended, not a faded version of it.

2. The roast date — the one that matters most

Roasting unlocks the flavour, and it starts a clock. From the moment beans leave the roaster they're at their peak for a window, then slowly stale as oxygen and moisture do their work. As a rule of thumb, whole beans are at their best for around two to four weeks after roasting — a little longer for darker roasts, a little shorter once ground.

That's why every Dāku coffee carries a roast date, not a sell-by date, and why we roast to order in London. A “best before 2027” sticker tells you the bag won't hurt you; a roast date tells you the coffee will actually taste of something.

3. The rest date — give it a few days to settle

Here's the part most people miss: coffee is often too fresh. Roasting fills the beans with carbon dioxide, and for the first few days they release it steadily — “degassing.” Brew during that rush and the gas gets in the way of extraction: espresso gushes and tastes sharp or sour; filter can come out thin and uneven.

So the beans need a short rest. A good starting point:

• Espresso: rest 7–14 days after roast — this is where body and sweetness settle in.
• Filter & pour-over: 4–10 days is usually the sweet spot.

After that window the coffee is in its prime for a couple of weeks, then gently declines. If your shots taste better a week after the bag arrives than on day one, this is why — you weren't doing anything wrong; the coffee just needed to breathe.

Freshness, handled for you

Get all three dates right and coffee at home starts to taste the way it does in a good café. The simplest way to stay in the window is a steady supply: a Dāku subscription delivers your beans every two or four weeks, roasted to order, so there's always a fresh bag resting and ready. Browse the range →