What’s the deal with peaberries? They’re not peas and they’re not berries. They do not look like an average coffee bean. Are they a defect or delicacy? What are these mysterious beans?
Coffee grows on trees – shrubs, to be more precise. Buds blossom into cherries and inside the cherry are the coffee beans. These beans get processed, roasted, and brewed into your favorite beverage. Also known as caracolillo in Spanish (little snail), a peaberry is a rare coffee bean- not a different varietal or origin, but an example where a coffee bean grows contrarily.
Naturally, inside a traditional coffee cherry, there are usually two beans inside. Their flat fronts are face inward and their round backs face outward. In a peaberry coffee cherry, one bean cannot grow and inside the cherry, instead, one round bean forms. This bean grows with nothing flattening it during development, resulting in a pea-shaped (or oval-shaped) bean called a peaberry. The peaberry anomaly occurs in 5- 10% of the total coffee harvest, making them a rare item.
Traditionally, peaberries were considered a defect because of their shape and were rejected by coffee buyers throughout the industry. Forever the underdog of specialty coffee, the oddly shaped bean still draws ire for some coffee buyers, seeing them unworthy of a specialty grade. However, they share the same genetics as their flat coffee bean counterparts from the same shrub. Singled out by their screen size and optical eye sorters, or picked out by the hand sorters, their distinct shape and size and the mystery behind them make the peaberry genuinely one of nature’s wonders.
There has been much conjecture concerning what prompts the creation of such a unique specimen; some believe peaberries occur because of a natural mutation. Others claim it is a result of pollination, weather, or plant nutrition. Nature has a way of doing things, and mother nature will do what mother nature wants to do.
The peaberry is a naturally occurring abortion when one ovule in the ovary cannot pollinate, resulting in more room for the single developing bean. The lonely child lives a lonely life inside its cherry domicile, but it thrives within this environment. Extra space inside the cherry allows for a denser, rounder, and prouder bean to grow inside.
In fact, not all one-seeded cherries are peaberries, but all peaberries are one-seeded cherries. It is possible for only one regular, flat-sided seed to develop inside a cherry, making peaberries even more special.
Besides being smaller and rounder than regular beans, the peaberry bean is also denser. These characteristics affect the roasting process. Some argue that it is harder to roast peaberries because of their shape. Others claim their unique bodies help them roll better in the roaster, making it easier to absorb the heat and roast more evenly. Ultimately, it is up to the roaster to understand the attributes of that bean and, therefore, adjust accordingly.
Peaberries can provide brighter acidity, sweetness, and concentrated and complex flavors in the cup. Some theories claim that peaberries contain twice as much flavor as a traditional flat bean. The single peaberry bean receives all the sugars, juices, and nutrients of the coffee cherry rather than sharing with another bean, making this bean higher in caffeine and sweeter than other beans.
One thing is for sure – at Benchmark, we love our peaberry! From love at first sip, to rejection from traditional buyers around the world, to the phenomenon of the peaberry being selected blindly on third wave cupping tables across America, our peaberry has been on quite a rollercoaster. We love the story of the rejected underdog finally finding its home among green coffee suppliers coffee roasters in America who don’t have preconceived notions about what a coffee bean is “supposed to look like.” In the end of the day, our partners care about cup quality and growing and sourcing practices. In a very real sense, it’s more merit-based approach and the mighty peaberry came to play!