Peaberry is a common term spoken around a lot of coffee shops and specialty roasters.  But what does it mean to you the coffee consumer?  A peaberry is actually a genetic anomaly found in roughly 5-8% of coffee beans.  When coffee cherries grow they usually contain two seeds (coffee beans) sandwiched together.  This gives your typical coffee beans the flat on one side, rounded on the other appearance.

Sometimes a coffee cherry grows with only one seed inside.  When this happens the seed becomes rounded on all sides because it doesn’t have a buddy to press itself against.  The pleasant side affect of this is the concentration of what would normally be two beans worth of flavor into one bean.  Even caffeine content appears to be higher in these genetic anomalies.    Use this to be a well educated consumer, if somebody sells you an expensive bag of “Peaberry” coffee but it’s full of flat beans.  Somebody just ripped you off.  True Peaberry coffees have to be sorted by hand, a painstaking and laborious process.  I have had the pleasure of trying a pure peaberry coffee from India, and it was amazing.  If you are up for a coffee adventure, give it a shot.  If you buy from a reputable roaster I am sure you will not be disappointed.

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