Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Peaberry - Caracoli


Roast of the week at Caffenation is a Brazil Caracoli.
Another name for caracoli is peaberry.
At Wikipedia we found the following explanation :

Peaberry, also known as caracoli, is a type of coffee bean. Normally the fruit of the coffee plant develops as two halves of a bean within a single cherry, but sometimes only one of the two seeds gets fertilized so there is nothing to flatten it. This oval (or pea-shaped) bean is known as Peaberry. Typically around 5% of all coffee beans harvested are of this form.

Normal coffee beans are less commonly called by contrast flat berry.

Peaberry coffees are particularly associated with Tanzanian Coffee. [1]


This week we also tested a Tanzania Peaberry called Hope. Tanzania is indeed known for it's peaberry, although you find them in many Eastern African country's.

Very interesting to see that it looks like the peaberry is better for espresso than his flat berry brother. It still remember a documentary by Paul Bassett in which the owner of the well known Sydney espressobar Campos is full of passion for Kenyan coffee and especially the peaberry one they offer.

Last year we've been cupping a lot of Brazilian coffee's and this caracoli stood out for body and cleanliness.
On espresso it shows ; more body then the other Santos and Cerrado beans we find in the harbour and a less acidic finish.
For this special price of €3,80 a bag (250gr) this week at Caffenation.

One last thing about this funky looking peaberry/caracoli. Sometimes you wonder why they're so small, but apparently you mostly pick the beans at the end of the branch and are therefor less developed.

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