Ullr Coffee

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What you should do with old or undrinkable coffee beans

So, you forgot about your delicious bag of Ullr Coffee Co beans in the back of your cupboard and now they’ve lost all their flavor and aroma, as coffee does over time. What can you do with these beans if you don’t want to drink them? Well, the first thing you should do is give us a holler and we’ll send you some replacement beans…

There is quite a bit you can do with coffee beans that you might not want to drink though. I have a huge bin of beans that come from messed up roasts or that have sat too long and lost their flavor and aroma.

  • Use it as a medium for art or dishware/mugs, etc. - grind it up, mix with epoxy and shape it into whatever you like. There are many companies and cafes that have mugs and dishware made from coffee grounds.

  • Compost it! - Coffee is an organic material, throw it in your compost bin and let it break down. Composting coffee grounds helps to add nitrogen to your compost pile and improves your gardening. Another good option is to use them as fertilizer as they do attract earthworms. Notice two things though, you usually garden with used coffee beans so either run some water through them, or go to my next advice, and practice making coffee with them before gardening. Also, you can use organic used coffee filters for your compost. So, if you have some filters, throw them to your compost as well!

  • Experiment with creative brewing techniques - What a great time to practice new brewing methods. Not familiar with cold-brew, percolator, Chemex or whatnot? Why not use your old beans first to see how the process goes and everything works before using your new expensive coffee beans for the real deal?

  • Use it for videos and content creation - If you are into filming or making sick YouTube or Instagram videos, coffee beans can come in handy all the time. Do you want to film a slow-motion shot of beans falling all over you? Compost it after of course.

  • Use it as an air freshener - Coffee has amazing odor absorption qualities, put a plate or bowl out and get rid of those nasty smells.