Chad in Portland & Nitrogen flushing

Chad has been in Portland all weekend (surprise birthday trip arranged by his lovely wife) and enjoying warm weather and lots of good coffee.  He has been hangin with the folks at Albina Press and Stumptown, I am totally jealous.  So the short of it is that I will be at the roaster today, so will Josh, I think, filling in for the Chad who is slumming in the US.  I will be roasting some fresh Esmeralda today, and likely some more COE El Salvador #30, plus our usual fair.  We will be nitrogen flushing the Esmeralda and COE coffees to ensure stability over the Christmas period.  This is a new thing for us, and we are planning to nitro flus all of our high end coffees, as well as all of the coffee going out in the mail in the new year.  For those of you new to nitrogen, it is an enert gas which displaces the oxygen in the bag.  As we all know, O2 is the enemy of any fresh food, including roasted coffee.  Moving to nitrogen will help us sleep a bit better knowing that the coffees purchased and destined for a spot under the Christmas tree, will still be fresh when they are opened Christmas day.