How is Purity Coffee different from all other coffee brands?
In this short video, founders Andrew Salisbury and Jon Butcher discuss Purity’s relentless focus on health throughout every step of the production chain. From the beans we select to how the coffee is packaged, no corners are ever cut at the expense of health benefits. This strict adherence to our core standards is what sets Purity apart from any other coffee company in the world.
Purity Coffee's Signature 3-Step Process
We produce coffee with a single goal in mind: maximizing the health benefits.
While there are many coffees produced today which claim to be good for you, the signature process we have developed ensures you’re getting the healthiest coffee available…period. The reason for this is very simple: we optimize for health benefits during every single step of the production process.
STEP 1:
Purity Health Profile
We select only the highest-grade organic green coffee beans then laboratory test them to make sure they meet our standard.
STEP 2:
Purity Roasting Profile
We customize our roasts for each lot of green coffee to make certain it contains minimum toxins and maximum health benefits.
STEP 3:
Purity Freshness
We pack our coffee to ensure that Purity retains its health profile and arrives to your door as fresh as the day it was roasted.
STEP 1
Purity Health Profile
Each season we lab test high-altitude, organically grown Arabica beans from farms around the world to determine which coffees meet or exceed Purity’s standards. From Indonesia to Costa Rica, from Ethiopia to Brazil, our mission is to find the highest quality coffee that fit the 5 criteria of our Purity Health Profile.
The 5 Criteria of our Purity Health Profile
We estimate less than 1% of coffees worldwide fit all 5 of these...
Always Certified Organic
Purity is committed to buying (and producing) regeneratively farmed, certified organic coffees. This means that agricultural methods integrate cultural, biological, and mechanical practices, including cycling resources, enriching soils, fostering ecological balance, and promoting biodiversity. Certified Organic coffees go far beyond how the plant is grown free of toxic chemicals, which many coffees claim without verification. Certification by the USDA and their trusted, audited partners demonstrates that not just the agricultural practices meet rigorous standards, but every point in the chain of custody protects a certified organic coffee from contamination—from farm, to dry mill, to shipping container and arrival at the port, then during offloading, warehousing and trucking to the roaster. The roaster, too, must follow strict organic processes (handling, roasting, cleaning, packing, etc.), and everyone in the chain is audited annually for their practices and paper trails. Unless a coffee carries the certified organic seal, it’s true it may have been grown without pesticides, but was its integrity protected the rest of the way to your cup?
Require ‘Near Zero Defects’ Standards
The highest standard of coffee with the least number of defects is classified as “specialty grade” and that is the Purity starting point. Green coffee defects are beans where something negatively impacted the green bean, usually resulting in an “off” flavor, but sometimes having a negative influence on your health. Defects occur for a multitude of reasons: Poor agricultural, harvesting, and processing practices, bad seasonal weather, and problematic transportation or storage of the coffee. Some defects are difficult to avoid, but others can be mitigated or eliminated. Regardless, to get as close to defect-free coffee as possible, the bulk of the coffee must be sorted by machine or hand.
For most coffee companies, the taste is the main reason for removing certain defects. For Purity, health is the main reason, because some bean defects contain toxins (like Ochratoxin A), contaminants that cause stomach upset, or substances that can cause histamine-like reactions in some people.
No Mold. Ever.
This should be an essential requirement of any coffee: The bag you receive should be free of mold spores that can form colonies when there is enough moisture. Mold spores can enter roasted coffee through poor processing (over-quenching with water, bad packaging, cross-contamination, unclean grinders, etc.) and handling. Purity Coffee and its roasting partners exceed the federal rules for cGMPs for food safety and test regularly, so there is no mold ever in our finished products.
Another essential requirement of any coffee should be testing for mycotoxins in the raw green coffee before importing the coffee for roasting. Mycotoxins are a serious health concern—even a little amount can cause serious problems in sensitive people; yet accepted levels for consumption differ from country to country. Mycotoxins enter coffee when specific mold species attach themselves to the green coffee and begin decomposition—the leftover metabolites are mycotoxins. Some mycotoxins enter the coffee through the plant itself, too. Only a small proportion of mycotoxin can be broken down at high roast temperatures, but unfortunately, these high temperatures may increase the formation of carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and eliminate healthy chlorogenic acids (polyphenols) in coffee. Therefore, we test our coffee before it is exported to ensure it is free of mycotoxins.
Sustainable Coffee Production
In 2022 to further reinforce our commitment to sustainability and to producing the healthiest coffee possible, we have invested in a coffee farm in Colombia. The best coffee for you means that while it is free from contaminants such as pesticides, mold, and mycotoxins; it is also highest in CGA and other antioxidants. Over the years we have recognized that the coffee highest in CGA comes from farms that use regenerative organic agriculture and is grown the way nature intended. That means diverse soil microorganisms and structures, organic farming practices, and cultivars that deliver the most CGA after roasting. We invested in our farm so that we could experiment on a soil and cultivar level to maximize these compounds and to develop best practices we can implement on our farm and on others from which we source.
Regenerative organic farming is critical for the future of our earth… and food supply. The regenerative movement is holistic, involving soil health, biodiversity, animal welfare, and fair wages & working conditions, among many other things. We translate this to coffee, ensuring Purity is certified organic, Rainforest Alliance®, Smithsonian Bird Friendly®, hand-picked and sorted, and grown in its natural environment with plenty of natural shade for slow development of the coffee seeds within their fruit.
Exceptional taste
Less than 1% of coffees worldwide fit all 5 of these criteria and we search diligently for coffees that do. All Purity Coffee is specialty grade coffee, but not all specialty grade coffee is Purity Coffee. Our coffees are complex and balanced, having warm, classical coffee flavor profiles that are rich with notes of chocolates, nuts, fruits, and deliciously caramelized sugars that everyone can enjoy. We blend our fully traceable coffees to be replicable and consistent, yet always remain fresh regardless of the varying crop cycles of different origins.
STEP 2
Purity Roasting Protocol
The final step in choosing coffees that meet our Purity Health Profile is to test to see which ones are highest in antioxidant compounds. We then determine a roasting profile specifically to maximize the healthy compounds and minimize any undesirable compounds that are naturally produced during the roasting process:
- As the bean is roasted, healthy chlorogenic acids and other desirable antioxidant compounds diminish. Our goal is to be the highest in antioxidant compounds. We roast to maximize chlorogenic acids, so we experiment with different curves and test the results for the profile that retained the most of these special compounds. The testing confirms our final target at which to set the roast curve.
- At the beginning of the roasting process, acrylamide is formed and is broken down later in the roast, so if the bean is under-roasted there will be higher levels of acrylamide, which is unhealthy for you. We roast to decrease acrylamide. Acrylamide cannot be completely avoided but can be greatly decreased through a proper roasting protocol. We do not under-roast, and again, we laboratory test to check our levels are as low as possible
- Over-roasting coffee may form polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), some of which are carcinogenic. PAHs in roasted coffee beans are dependent on roasting temperature and roasting time. We carefully choose when to end the roasting cycle to avoid creating PAH content in our coffee.
Focusing on the right things...
As the bean is roasted, healthy chlorogenic acids and other desirable antioxidant compounds diminish. Our goal is to be highest in antioxidant compounds. We roast to maximize chlorogenic acids, so we experiment with different curves and test the results for the profile that retained the most of these special compounds.
In the beginning of the roasting process, acrylamide is formed and is broken down later in the roast, so if the bean is under-roasted there will be higher levels of acrylamide, which is unhealthy for you. We roast to decrease acrylamide. Acrylamide cannot be totally avoided, but can be greatly decreased through a proper roasting protocol. We do not under-roast.
Over-roasting coffee may form polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), some of which are carcinogenic. PAHs in the roasted coffee beans are dependent on roasting temperature and roasting time. We carefully choose when to end the roasting cycle to eliminate PAH content in our coffee.
We prepare, organize, document and send off our profile samples for testing. Our scientists are evaluating the data and developing standards as we submit green coffees and roast profiles to them.
In other words, at Purity, as we roast for health, we hope you will enjoy the flavor as much as the peace in knowing your coffee is the healthiest we can make it.
We prepare, organize, document and send off our profile samples for testing.
STEP 3
Purity Freshness
Virtually every food will eventually oxidize or spoil. Coffee is no exception – it stales. Fresh coffee is simply better for you. Purity employs the most current industry practices to keep the coffee’s antioxidants from degrading and oils from turning rancid. With Purity, you receive coffee as fresh as the day it was roasted.
Fresh is best.
There are only a few food and beverage products that improve with age – and coffee isn’t one of them.
We believe coffee retains optimal health benefits as whole beans for about 20 days after roasting before things start to decline. This is the best time to experience the remarkable flavors, fresh bloom, the energy that you will notice in your body, and the clarity you’ll notice in your mind. It’s not just the caffeine you’re feeling… Rather, it’s the sustained energy derived from consuming one of the richest sources of antioxidant compounds on earth.
These marvelous qualities start to fade after 20-30 days. When coffee goes bad, the oils become rancid (they oxidize), the organic materials stale (due to moisture and oxygen) and the taste can become tallowy or acrid with woody or wet cardboard flavors.
Coffee may languish on supermarket shelves and in warehouses for months, losing more flavor and growing stale over time. As a result, both the coffee’s fresh, bright flavor and some of the health benefits are already on a downward spiral by the time a consumer puts it in the shopping cart. This is why so many of the coffees sold in supermarkets are labeled without reference to when they were roasted, making it impossible for you to determine how fresh they are.
As a Purity Coffee Subscriber, you receive your coffee every month and it arrives to you as soon as the delivery vehicle can get it there. That means the coffee is fresh and tastes great, but it’s also better for you than most coffee that has been roasted months before you get the chance to buy it.
Once you have tried freshly roasted Purity Coffee, you will notice the difference, not only in how it tastes but in how it makes you feel. Most of our customers report feeling sustained, clean energy, without the jitters and upset stomach that come from ingesting stale coffee.
15 - 15 - 15
Utilizing coffee’s rule-of-thumb to keep peak freshness for each cup.
15 month
green coffee storage limit
Raw “green” coffee beans are acceptable for 15 months if stored correctly.
15 day
ideal consumption time
Roasted coffee’s aromas and flavors are at their best between days 2 and 15 after roasting, if it is stored in an airtight container away from heat and light.
15 minutes
after grind
After it’s ground, coffee should be consumed within 15 minutes to get the maximum health benefits.
Fresh coffee is healthy coffee.