How many cups of coffee from a 12-ounce bag of coffee beans?

by Ann

(Gatineau, QC)

QUESTION:
Quick question. Maybe I should be able to work this out for myself from other places on your site. BTW – I love this site!
But can you give me quick and dirty answer to how many cups of coffee I can expect to get from a 12-ounce bag of whole coffee beans?
Not all at once, of course. But if I buy a bag of beans at the weekend, I want to know how long the coffee will last.
There’s just me drinking coffee in our home. And I drink two or three cups a day.
Give me a rough idea?
Thanks
Ann
ANSWER:
Ann, hi
I think I can do that for you. : ) And thank you for the kind words about the website.
A big variable here is the size of your coffee cup. A lot of calculations are based on a 6-ounce cup. But honestly, that’s more like a small teacup!
I’m going to assume your coffee cup is more like 9 ounces.
Let’s start with the standard calculation for the proportion of coffee to water:
– Add .36 ounces of ground coffee per 6-ounce cup.
In your case, we need to change this to:
– Add 0.54 ounces of ground coffee per 9-ounce cup
Now we can figure out how many 0.54 servings you can get from a 12-ounce bag of whole beans.
First off, let’s assume there’s zero wastage. So your 12 ounces of whole beans will be ground into 12 ounces of ground coffee.
Simple divide the 12 ounces by 0.54 ounces per cup… and you get 22 cups.
And that means, if you have two cups a day, your 12-ounce bag of whole beans will last you 11 days.
If you have three cups a day, it will last you about 7 days.
Keep in mind, tastes vary. You might like a stronger brew, which means you’ll be adding more coffee in proportion to the water. And vice versa.
I hope this helps!
Best wishes,
Nick

Join in and write your own page! It’s easy to do. How? Simply click here to return to Questions about Coffee.

Sign up for occasional newsletters about the best coffees and brewing equipment. Plus special updates from the Coffee Detective Coffee Store…