Ceteris paribus... these two words are a delight for a nerdy geek who studied Latin at school and then studied economics postgrad. The term refers to a situation where only one variable changes and tries to attribute different results to that one changing variable... it literally means "everything else remaining the same".
I've been wanting to see for myself whether a heat sealed bag of coffee which remains unopened is any fresher than a bag of coffee, with the same roast date, which has been opened beforehand.
I roasted a batch of single origin natural Ethiopian Yirgacheffe Chelbesa, a delicious coffee. Put 200 grams in a bag which I didn't seal, and 200 grams in a big which I heat sealed. Every day I would open the unsealed bag and treat it like I was making coffee. Shake it around a bit, jiggle the beans around, think good coffee thoughts. After 10 days I opened the unsealed bag as well, and then proceeded to make lots of coffees over the next few days.
The main thing to note is that this trial is not a blind trial. I knew which bag the coffee came from when I tasted it. Also the trial didn't strictly compare like with like. Because I don't have two identical coffee machines, I'm unable to make two different coffees at the same time and therefore there are temperature differences between the two coffees. However, I tried to remember the flavour of the first mouthful post coffee extraction.
So what did I discover? The very first coffees that I made from the two bags did seem different. I had a slight preference for the coffee which came out of the sealed bag. However, each subsequent day, I found that the coffees were indistinguishable.
If I were buying coffee from a supplier I'd be happy to buy in larger bag sizes and enjoy my volume discount...
As they say though, YMMV (your mileage may vary).
Hope you're all very well.