What you are describing is a vacuum-seal, which eliminates oxygen from the container. Most foods will store better/longer if you eliminate oxygen, heat, light and moisture, and that's true with coffee.

For long-term storage it is suggested you store green coffee beans in hermetically-sealed cans or vacuum-sealed bags/jars/canisters, or using an oxygen absorber and mylar bag. These methods prevent oxygen.

In order to assure freshness, roast and grind your own beans. Otherwise, according to "aficionados", anything you purchase commercially is basically old and has already been degraded from processing and storage. Just as with whole grains, once the outside "coat" has been cracked exposing the oils to oxygen, the coffee bean freshness is destroyed. The shelf-life for green coffee beans stored in an oxygen-free environment and in a cool room temperature is years more than roasted beans or roasted and ground.

As far as eggs go, the government regulates eggs by weight - see link below. The diet of the hens will determine the hardness of the shells. Crushed oyster shells (supplementing calcium) are often added to chicken feed in order to improve shell strength.

-Grainlady

Here is a link that might be useful: Eggs From A to Z

Some coffee "Gevalier fpor example" comes vacuum pacied in a plastic bag....you get that whoosh and the smell when you open it....some other coffee still comes in a vacuum sealed can....Yuban for example.
Actually I find egg shells thinner than they used to be.....more apt to break when packing in a bag....unless I buy "farm eggs" directly from the person who keeps the hens.
Linda C

I wonder. Is a harder eggshell or thinner eggshell better for barring internal contaminants? Or does it matter?

rob333-

Eggs can be contaminated with bacteria via the hen before it's laid, not just bacteria from external sources (flies, handling by humans, etc.).

Because the shells are dry, there are several types of bacteria (Streptococcus, Staphylococcus, Micrococcus and Bacillus) that can be present on the shells, and it isn't until they reach optimum conditions for developing the bacteria into a toxin that they become dangerous for human consumption. According to one source, the older the eggs get, these bacteria decline in numbers and are replaced by spoilage bacteria (coliform and Flavobacterium, but the most common are several types of Pseudomonas). "Pseudomonas can grow at temperatures just above refrigeration and below room temperatures and, if they are present in large numbers, may give eggs a sour or fruity odor and a blue-green coloring." Another good reason to make sure your refrigerator is that food-safe temperature of 40-degrees F or colder. If you store eggs on the refrigerator door, your eggs may be much warmer than the interior of the refrigerator.

If an egg feels slimy, that can be an indication of a bacterial growth.

-Grainlady

Eggs also have a covering on them which protects the "innards" from contamination from the outside. This washes off easily with water....the old timers would easily keep unwashed eggs in a cool place for months, as long as the bloom was not washed off no contaminants would enter.
To answer your question, keeping quality has nothing to do with the thickness of the shell, but rather if the exterior coating is intact.

Here is a link that might be useful: keeping eggs

lindac:

Thank you for mentioning the brands of coffee that are still vacuum-sealed. My question was really just why don't all the others still vacuum-seal the containers as they all used to do? Is it cheaper now to not do it?

Also, at my age(!).. I remember back when the size of store-bought eggs were really larger when called 'large' than the 'large' ones today. A few years ago the shells in the store-bought eggs (at least in my part of the country) were so thin.. would break at times when lifting them out of the carton! Now I really have to bang them on the side of the pan to break them (which is better really) so just curious!

When we had a few hens a few years ago here in the city, city-raised people who had always eaten store-bought eggs thought our fresh big eggs with the bright yellow yolks looked strange.. ?spoiled & hesitated to eat them! Only fault I find with fresh eggs is that they do not peel as well for deviled eggs, etc. as older eggs.

My Iowa farm grandmother used to keep the eggs in the basement in a big crock of 'water-glass'... anyone old enough to remember this?! They seemed to last forever & not spoil. She never would wash a fresh egg.. waited a few days before washing them.

Don't know why all coffee isn't vacuum sealed today...
It's been a lot of years since the sizes of eggs which could be labeled large or extra large or jumbo were standardized....not in my memory. So I think your memory of very large "large" eggs is a bit flawed.
Eggs bought form an "egg man" or "egg lady" didn't have to be standardized. I remember well when the new hens would lay Pullet eggs....and eventually grow up to lay big eggs....with double yolks.
I remember eggs stored in damp sand in the basement.
Linda c

All the coffee we buy is vacuum sealed. The modern ubiquitous plasti-metallic bags are sealed, with a one-way vent in them so they can be packed warm and any residual moisture will escape out, instead of condensing within. I also buy Italian ground expresso in vac sealed bricks.

Don't drink much coffee so I can't comment on that, but I was thinking the same thing about eggs just the other day. I have always bought "large" eggs and I have one of those refrigerators with little egg cups on the side door so I always take my eggs out of the carton and put them in the cups to save inside space. This is just my anecdotal experience, but I was thinking, "These 'large" eggs don't look 'large' to me. I have two possible thoughts but I could be way off base. Food prices are going up, for a whole lot of reasons, and rather than raise prices, a whole lot of food sellers are subtley resizing/downsizing their packaging. Not enough to make it dramatic so you can easily tell. Not sure that this could "officially" happen in the egg industry, but I know standards enforcement isn't all that strict. Maybe some reporter needs to investigate, lol! However, since BF's son is trying to crack the journalism field, I know that actual news reporting is a fast dying profession--too expensive to pay all those intrepid scandal investigators! But I could also be totally wrong about the eggs too!! Also, maybe at one time they were hand graded and now are machine graded and people were more generous in their sorting. Or the standards have gradually changed in favor of smaller eggs being graded as "large." I'm not up on egg sizing politics, lol! I miss the days when I had a line on farm fresh eggs. All kinds of sizes with those! Nowdays I am just on the road too much commuting for my new job to seek out the most quality ingredients. And even if I find them, I can rarely afford them.

Waterglass = sodium silicate

I found a fun link to a guy with the great screenname "Old Buzzard" who raises ducks so he did some research on old-fashioned methods of preserving eggs. He referenced a book titled "Encyclopedia of Country Living".

Once ground, coffee begins to lose flavor and aroma rapidly. Freezing helps, but really good coffee beans are always freshly ground. But I'll confess, I buy it in 1-lb pkgs and freeze it, keeping only a small amount in a container for immediate use and replenishing weekly. Now I'm just a snob about which beans we buy [grin].

Here is a link that might be useful: How to preserve eggs using waterglass solution

I remember being send to the "egg man" down the street with 50 cents to buy a dozen "cracks." These were, as the name implies, eggs that were cracked, and therefore cheaper than uncracked eggs. No wonder I have such a great immune system!
Jane

In our Swedish family the coffee pot was/is always hot (made at least six pot fulls every day!). No way could we afford to by Gevalia ( I have tried that & it is good!) or other such $$ brands or even coffee beans to grind when we use so much coffee every day! The best coffee I have tasted recently was at the "Route 66 Casino" off I-40 west of Albuquerque! Think when I inquired, I was told they buy packets of ?liquid coffee 'syrup'/concentrate that they use in the special commercial coffee pots. They get lots of compliments about their coffee they say! My Swedish grandparents made coffee the old fashioned 'campfire' way: put grounds in a pot of water with some eggshells & bring to a boil. During the day more water was added as the 'brew' got too strong! Joke was that the pot was only emptied & washed for the weekend! Even non-coffee drinkers admit they love the smell of good roasted coffee grounds ... but not the taste!

As for the egg ?....
I distinctly recall the size differences of the eggs between the egg cartons labelled 'small', 'medium', 'large' & 'extra large'... guess that means I truly am from 'Little House On The Prairie' days?!!

Egg sizes have not changed in more than a few years.....if there was any noticeable difference, recipes using a large number of eggs wouldn't work. For example a sponge cake calling for 5 eggs and 5 yolks. If egg sizes have changed as much as 10% that would be a significant change in the recipe and it wouldn't work.
Unless your eggs come from "the egg lady"....the sizes are the same as back in the 40's I believe when all the size grading started.
Linda C