It is day nine of a fourteen-day charter in the Balearics. The espresso has gone flat, the crema is thin and pale, and the beans in the hopper look dull. Nobody did anything wrong at the machine. The coffee simply died in a hot galley, in an open bag, next to the oven.
Freshness and Degassing
Roasted coffee is perishable. Two clocks run against you.
- Degassing: freshly roasted coffee is saturated with CO2. Pulled too soon, espresso gushes, foams and tastes thin and sharp.
- Staling: oxygen strips aroma and oxidises the oils. The coffee goes flat, then papery, then rancid.
| Time from roast | Espresso behaviour |
|---|---|
| 0-3 days | Too gassy; wild, unstable, foamy shots |
| 4-14 days | The sweet spot for most espresso roasts |
| 14-28 days | Still good; crema thins gradually |
| 28 days+ | Flat, dull, muted; noticeably stale |
Ground coffee stales in minutes to hours, not weeks, because the surface area explodes. This is the single strongest argument for grinding to order.
Whole Bean vs Pre-Ground
- Whole bean plus a burr grinder is the only way to serve genuinely good espresso. Non-negotiable on a yacht selling a premium experience.
- Pre-ground has a place: a sealed emergency backup, a French press for crew, or a capsule/filter fallback if the grinder fails mid-charter.
- Grind only what you will use. Never grind a service ahead of time and leave it sitting in the doser.
The Four Enemies Onboard
Air, moisture, heat and light. A galley is hostile on all four counts.
- Air: keep coffee in the original one-way valve bag, rolled and clipped, or in an airtight opaque canister. The valve lets CO2 out without letting oxygen in.
- Moisture: high humidity at sea causes clumping and stale flavours. Never store coffee near the dishwasher, kettle or steam.
- Heat: store cool and stable. Not above the oven, not against the hull in the engine room bulkhead, not in direct sun on a countertop.
- Light: opaque containers only. Clear jars look elegant and ruin coffee.
- Do not freeze coffee you are opening daily. Repeated freeze-thaw cycles condense moisture onto the beans. Long-term sealed freezing of unopened bags can work, but thaw fully sealed before opening.
Provisioning for a Charter
- Estimate consumption: roughly 8-10 g per single espresso, 16-20 g for a double. A milk drink is usually a double.
- A rough working figure is 2-4 espresso-based drinks per guest per day, plus crew. For 12 guests over 10 days, that is meaningful kilos, not grams.
- Order to land with a roast date within the last week, and stagger deliveries if the charter is long.
- Carry decaf. Always. Decaffeinated coffee is real coffee stripped of caffeine, most cleanly by the Swiss Water or CO2 processes; solvent methods (ethyl acetate, methylene chloride) are also widely used and safe. Decaf is more brittle and roasts darker, so it typically needs its own grind setting.
- Note guest preferences in the preference sheet and carry the brand a repeat guest asked for last season.
Onboard Notes
- Keep decaf beans in a clearly labelled second hopper or a separate sealed container, and purge the grinder before and after. Serving a caffeinated shot to a guest who asked for decaf is a real problem, not a small one.
- Rotate stock: first in, first out, with roast dates written on the bag in marker.