Do I need to take any special steps to store green beans? My understanding is that green beans are better because they don't lose flavor via evaporation of their oils etc while being stored. Can I just leave them in a ziploc or should I take some other steps? Thanks.
So.... what a great opportunity to chat about bean storage.....
This question comes up often, and usually centers on roasted and ground bean storage, and in a smaller population for green. (there are, logically and by count, more finished-product consumers of coffee than home and commercial roasters.)
I can think of numerous things I've stored over the years that carry the packaging instructions that include, "...cool and dry place, temperature range betwen 68 F to 72 F." Having been in photography most of my life, that was the mandate for film. Today, in the digital world, I worry less about temp and humidity, but more neurotically, how I might accidently break those tiny, micro cards in two! (...it's that pocket storage thing, yet that's where they go most of the time!? Why don't I put them back in the protective plastic case?)
For home coffee enthusiasts, we usually rotate both our green and roasted inventory well within the limits of the beans. However, commercial storage of green can extend to one year, or longer. Even as a home roaster or roasted bean consumer, and whether you store in "breathable" containment, airtight, or oxygen-evacuated bags, the "cool dry location issue" is still of uppermost importance. And if you're to maintain control over the many variables in brewing your coffee, whether it's drip/pourover or espresso methods, being better educated in all phases of coffee certainly helps to reduce all of the variables in achieving that "G*d Shot", to which many 'spro brewers refer.
So, if this is a realtively new area to you, and to work toward your "Associates Degree in Coffee".....I'd highly recommend reading the following page from Sweet Maria's website:
Storing Green Coffee
While the information seems more aimed at commercial transit and storage of green, SM does address home storage with, what I suggest, is that same basic instruction I got from Kodak, while I was storing my Kodachrome and Polaroid shipments in that cooler near the Laotian border back in 1968; "Cool and dry." Which by the way, was the same basic instruction we received for maintaining "our-own-selves" back then, when someone was about to freak out in what was usually a stressful situation.
"Boy, it's hot in here!"