"Coffee is made with ground coffee beans and water, nothing else. And the higher the proportion of the former, and the shorter the time between grinding and making, the better."

Couldn't agree more. That's why we treated ourselves to a bean-to-cup machine. We don't use pre-ground coffee (how can that be "fresh" once the bag's opened?) and we keep beans in small amounts in an airtight tin in the fridge. Even then, the gloss on the beans from a newly-opened bag has gone by the next day. In the perfect world you'd want the coffee bean shop right door to your house, roasting to order and rushing the beans round to your house daily. You won't be seeing that in Bude any time soon!

There used to be a shop that supplied beans from all over the world, freshly-roasted by them, about 25 miles away, not cheap, but it's gone. These days we use Waitrose's Italian-style beans, strength 5. They seem to be at least as good as any of the other beans of that strength available in supermarkets. Those little valved bags definitely seem to do the trick when it comes to keeping the beans "fresh."