The problem with most grocery store coffee (and SBX for that matter) is that you have no idea whatsoever as to when the coffee you're buying was roasted. Rest assured - in most cases the stuff you buy in the grocery store was roasted months ago...maybe many months ago. The exception I've found is Whole Foods stores. They seem to work relationships with local roasters who ship directly to the stores - thus eliminating the months of layover in distribution warehouses. In addition, many of them stamp a roasting date on the bag. Also, many Whole Foods stores roast their own in-house, and they keep it in bins with the roasting date marked on the top...very cool.
The bags of deliciousness in the picture are from one of my favorite roasters; Rival Bros in the Philadelphia area. I buy from them online, and they ship UPS. You can see by the date of this post and the date on the bag - my coffee was roasted 4 days ago. That'll work! That's a bag of their Palooka decaf and a dark high test called Whistle & Cuss. I've had both before, and both are exceptional.
You can visit the Rival Bros website here: http://www.rivalbros.com/
