August 2024

Tanzania Peaberry 

Elevation: 1,600 meters above sea level

Grade: Peaberry

Regions: Mbeya & Songwe

Process: 72 hour ferment, Washed

Tasting Notes: Milk Chocolate, Pecan, Red Currant, Chamomile, Citrus

Cup Score: 85.25

From the Southern Highlands of Tanzania, this specialty coffee is a special mutation that occurs in roughly 1 in 9 coffee beans from a given tree. Peaberry coffee is highly sought after for its complex flavor profile.

This coffee is produced by smallholder farms that are members of the Isaiso Agricultural Marketing Cooperative Society (AMCOS), a Tanzanian Co-op that consists of 350+ smallholder farm members. In 2023, the Isaiso AMCOS won the Tanzania Fine Coffee Competition with this peaberry coffee. AMCOS is responsible for 95% of coffee production in the country, and assists smallholders with production, processing, storage, transport and government aid.

The Tanzania Highlands are an especially fertile area of Africa, where temperature is less harsh than the lowlands, and the rain is much more frequent. The 4th largest freshwater lake in the world by volume, Lake Malawi sits to the south, providing convective thunderstorms that allow for crops like coffee to be grown. The rainy season lasts from November to mid-May, letting the coffee grow for almost 7 months uninterrupted. The beans are harvested during the dry season, when they are processed and sorted by grade.

PB, or Peaberry is the highest grade of coffee in the Tanzania grading system. Peaberry coffee beans are made of one "seed" instead of two. Coffee beans normally are oblong and have that split or crack in the middle of them, like a peanut. Peaberry beans do not, only having the one "seed", giving them a uniquely round, smaller "pea" shape. These beans are denser, which means they have less air in them and more liquid and sugars. This is critical to know during the roasting of the coffee, when more density means it is more resistant to changes in heat.

Density also plays an important role during processing of the beans, when the beans are fermented and go through a washing channel. Lower grade beans that are less dense end up floating to the top of the water, and higher grade beans will sink to the bottom. From there they are sorted through screens of specified widths, Peaberry being the smallest screen size.

We're really loving this coffee! Apart from normal tasting notes like chocolate and citrus, the complex nature of the peaberry bean reveals light tasting notes of chamomile and currant.