Rail Trail Roasters is “roast-to-order”. This means that your coffee is roasted just for you when you place your order. We won’t be pulling your bag off a shelf or from a batch roast. Your coffee goes straight from my roasting room to your door.

We roast our coffee on a “fluid bed roaster”. It roasts the coffee with hot air only. The vast majority of coffee is roasted on gas-powered drum-style roasters. There is endless debate about which method is superior - debate which we certainly couldn’t settle here. Scott Rao - a well-respected roasting authority - has predicted that fluid bed roasting will grow in popularity in the near future. We think that our fluid bed roaster produces excellent coffee and we hope you will too!

Please allow us 2-3 business days (starting from the day following your order placement) to roast, pack, and ship your order.

We ship using USPS. As many of us have likely experienced at some point, all shipping services are subject to delays. We would deeply appreciate your understanding in the event that there are long delays due to the shipping carrier. This is beyond our control and is sadly common around most holidays. If you are worried about coffee freshness, we do recommend ordering whole bean, which stays at peak deliciousness for a month or more.

However you like! Truly, if you have a brew method that you are comfortable with and that you know how to make good coffee on, there is little reason to change.

Be aware that if you are accustomed to brewing coffee that is months and months off roast, fresh-roasted coffee may behave a little differently. It “blooms” - swells up with releasing gas as water hits it for the first time. Also, be mindful that dark and light roast coffee behave very differently. The same methods that produce a tasty cup of dark roast coffee may result in a sour, unpleasant cup from a light roast.

All of my roasts can be enjoyed as espresso or “filter” (which I will use as a catch-all term for non-espresso coffee).

If you want my personal recommendation for brewing filter coffee, I think the Clever Dripper by far the easiest way to make an amazing cup of coffee.

In our experience, the general rule is that coffee needs to rest about 3 days after being roasted before it becomes drinkable. Before that the coffee may taste flat.

Between 3 and 8 days, the full profile of flavors in the coffee are now present. The coffee will be delicious but a bit “young”, especially for light roasted coffee. You may find that you enjoy this very early flavor, but there is still more to explore as the coffee rests.

At around 1 to 2 weeks off-roast, flavor nuances may change compared to very fresh-off-roast coffee. This change is not, in our experience, positive or negative. The flavor notes will not change; you may simply notice that some are enhanced while others take a back seat.

At 3 to 6 weeks, coffee remains delicious and flavors may continue to mature and change.

Coffee beans can be frozen, though we don’t recommend re-freezing once thawed. Frozen coffee can stay good for a few months.

Coffee that has not been frozen should be drank within 6 weeks (for dark roasts) to two months (for light roasts) - at that point, any coffee will experience noticeable decline in flavor.

If you drink it within a few weeks, you can simply store coffee in the bag it comes in. If it is a tin-tie bag, do roll the tie down after each use.

If you want to make sure coffee stays freshest for the longest period of time, a sealed/valved container is best such as the Airscape or Fellow Atmos.

Remember that coffee releases CO2 as it rests; sealing it in an airtight container without a valve will build up pressure in the container. This won’t make any container explode or anything - you may simply hear a “pop” as you open it.

James Hoffmann on YouTube does an excellent job balancing delivering entertainment and education about all things coffee. I cannot recommend him enough.

I am personally active on an espresso- and coffee-focused Discord server called Espresso Aficionados.

Home-barista.com has an espresso focus, but is the single best website for the free exchange of ideas between coffee hobbyists on the internet (in my opinion). This can be pretty advanced stuff, but if you really want to go down the coffee rabbit hole, this is where you can drink from that firehose.