re: Freshness
You can get freshly roasted coffee beans from Sweet Maria's:
http://www.sweetmarias.com/prod.roasted.html
Another option is
home roasting(Link to Sweet Maria's Guide). You ensure perfect freshness and control the character of the final cup.
I use the
Poplite. It needs very simple modding:
1. Remove label and both ends from soup can.
2. Wrap soup can in
heavy duty aluminum foil to increase height until it only clears the ceiling of popper by 1".
3. Secure foil with electrical tape.
4. Place soup can in roasting chamber.
This modification keeps the beans from flying out during the roasting process, but still allows the chaff to blow out.