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Comment by CalChris | Hacker News Reader

Alrighty then. You pay $25 for freshly ground coffee roasted right near where you live. And you only drink a cup or two a day. Let's call that 1.5 cups a day. A pound will provide 48 6 oz cups which will last you 48/1.5 = 1 month.

So it doesn't matter that your coffee was roasted very near where you live since on average it's two weeks old.

Me, I live in Oakland and I like a local roaster McLaughlin in Emeryville. I can get beans or ground from Farmer Joes, also local. But I don't overvalue locality to the extreme. I buy McLaughlin because I like the taste and for what it's worth, I buy ground not bean.

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He didn't say he buys a pound at a time, just that it's priced $25/lb. Nor that his "cup" (colloquially) was 6 oz in size, though for some reason coffee machines do seem to define their "cups" as 5 oz, coffee prep directions are always related to 6 oz., and the American unit of measurement is 1 cup / 8 fluid oz. (I assume we're discussing America here, because everyone else measures out their coffee in grams).

Using my mug - which I describe as my morning cup of coffee/tea - of 12 oz., buying a half-pound at a time, the "average" age of the coffee is now a couple of days.

If the entire strength of your argument goes away on the basis of tweaking a couple of variables by reasonable degrees, you should probably reconsider the argument.

I buy coffee by the half-pound, fwiw. Each cup uses around ... well, exactly 25g of beans. Which gives me about 9 cups per bag, which I go through in about a week. The last cup is usually the one where the coffee isn't blooming anymore when I pour hot water on it.

But there are certainly people who enjoy all different kinds of coffee. I'm not one to tell them what to do.

> So it doesn't matter that your coffee was roasted very near where you live since on average it's two weeks old.

"Time since roast" is hardly the only reason to prefer locally roasted beans. Actually, it's not a good reason at all, since you can ship roasted beans across the country a few times before they're ready to be ground and brewed.

Some folks just like to support their neighbors, and buying from local roasters could also mean fewer shipping miles (and less carbon emissions) attached to that that bag of beans.

As far as this 'support your neighbors' culture goes: it's an interesting thing to me because at a national level the politically correct response becomes the opposite (support free trade), and it also turns into a very inflammatory and controversial issue--likely because of nationalism. Even more interesting, it appears liberals and conservatives switch sides when going from local to national framework, i.e. liberals tend to support local, but not support protectionism, while conservatives appear the opposite.

I buy shirts that are made in San Francisco, but the fabric is almost certainly not made in the U.S. The global supply chain enables products that are in some sense "made locally". Same goes for coffee. So it's totally reasonable to be against protectionism and for buying "locally".

It can be something as simple as being able to talk to the roaster. I have a few good sources of coffee I use, but I prefer the local roaster. I do so because we can engage and he'll recommend a new coffee because he knows it's a match to my preferences. He is a former WBC contenter and have roaster for other WBC contenters, which is a testament to his skills. But I do it because I like to talk to the roaster behind the coffee.

Fair enough, but just to be clear my intention was not to debate either side as any more or less reasonable.

The divide is capital vs labor, not left vs right.

Also, protectionism != isolationism.

Actually products of labor and capital are both imported, and no one said anything about isolationism.

Smaller roasters can also specialize.

Starbucks roasts, what, 100m pounds of beans annually? In that 100m, there are plenty of awesome beans. But they have to make all 100m lbs taste good, consistent.

Whereas a small roaster can selectively buy 50 lbs of the best beans and make it taste perfect.

Did they say they bought a pound at a time? The coffee I but is also sold as $n per pound, but it's sold bulk, and I buy about ⅓ pound at a time, since that will last me a week or so.

You should give WestCoastRoasting a try. I picked up a few lbs awhile back, they're out of LA. Good variety and excellent pulls of espresso.

pfooti wrote:

"...freshly roasted right near where I live..."

Fresher vs closer. I worked above a roasting plant, got to know the roasters, drank the freshest roasts. Fantastic.

Starbucks in Pike Place used to sell green (unroasted) Sidamo beans. Popular with the local Ethiopian community, who'd roast at home.

Home roasting always sounds so awesome. But I've never done it. Silly me.

There's an opportunity there.

This is exactly why I stopped obsessing over how recently my beans were roasted. I take my coffee pretty seriously but I cannot tell the difference between days and weeks with coffee beans.

He didn't say he buys it by the pound; 6 oz bags are common.

He says he buys freshly roasted, not ground. Roasted coffee does not start degrading before at least a couple weeks.

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