For coffee storage, to prevent oxidation. I actually stopped using it since I'm planning to buy argon in bulk in a refillable tank instead of disposable canisters.
I still have a couple cans left over though. You know when you open a bag of coffee for the first time at ideal freshness and coffee tastes amazing? If you're not noticing a drop off after that, then you won't notice a difference here. But if you find yourself wishing it tasted like that first cup on opening day, well that's the difference. It will never get better than it was initially, but it can almost completely stop the drop off in quality. It would probably help to describe "quality" in its constituent parts
Concentration of aromatics
lack of oxidation, which presents as a flavor defect. Personally I think of this as a kind of itchy gross bitterness that stays in the aftertaste.
Freezing helps to slow both
Inert gas affects only the latter
So it just depends what issues you're tasting, whether it's worth putting more effort into storage . That said, coffee will oxidize if you open it early, like before it's even offgassed enough to enjoy fully. I just throw it in the fridge and enjoy my spro
I do pour overs the first few days, after that spro
Cause oxidation is way harder to taste as spro. It seems to not really come through as much. I used to single dose back when I was paying attention to storage
Now I just fridge the whole bag. For the record, someone whose palate I trust helped me develop that method. He's not on this discord. Then he tried the airscape lid with the straw hole thing for argon, and said it was even better than that method. We haven't been able to explain why, tbh.
His guess was something about keeping a higher mass of coffee together, I don't buy it. This isn't humid/warm tea storage where more flavor is generated by a stronger microbiome on a larger substrate
I'm guessing it simply as to do with the straw hole letting less atmospheric air in. compared to the tape method.
It's like pumping a ball, right? When you remove the needle, the hole self-closes instantly so no air is let out, by design. The drilled method doesn't have that advantage.