We all know the regular coffee beans, but did you ever hear of the peaberry? Let’s talk about it today because there is a lot to tell about these special coffee beans.
Coffee cherry
Let’s start at the beginning. A coffee berry is a fruit with coffee beans as the kernels. The regular coffee cherry contains two coffee beans, both with one flat and one round side. Within the coffee bean, there are different types. Think about the Arabica and the Robusta. The peaberry on the other end is from a different kind of order.
What is a Peaberry?
The peaberry is different from the regular coffee cherry because they only contain one coffee bean instead of two. This occurs when only one or two of the ovaries in the coffee flower are pollinated. You can say that the coffee cherry is deformed. Because of this, the pea beans are bigger and rounder. Peaberries occur naturally in 5 to 10 percent of the harvest.
The super berry
Although the peaberry is deformed, a lot of people used to think highly of them. Some even called them the ‘superior bean’ or a ‘super berry’. But why? Some say that a peaberry is superior to a “normal” coffee bean from the same plantation because all the flavor characteristics and nutrients from the berry are contained in one bean instead of two.
These days are more likely spoken of like a bean with a very different taste rather than a ‘super berry’.
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