Sumatra Tarbarita Peaberry

One of my favorite coffees is the Peaberry.  This coffee has a unique flavor like the added chicory of Louisiana but it is not as dominant and it is natural to this type of bean.

The aroma is very pleasant sporting a mocha scent that is a touch sweet.  The flavor is so good and smooth that it makes me want to cry with delight.  Alright, maybe crying is a little much but it really is a great flavor.  It has a smoothly sweetness that finishes very clean.  We tried it with some 90% chocolate and the sweetness of this brew exploded and brought a generous cacophony of flavor to be delved into by the taster of deep exploration.

I have always been partial to the Peaberry from Papau New Guinea but this Sumnatran ranks right up there with one of the best.

Bali Blue Moon

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Just South-East of Vietnam in the Flores Sea comes the Bali Blue Moon.  Highly regulated and hand-washed this bean looked very promising.


While I roasted I noticed that there was very little chaff.  It smoked a little on the initial heat-up and then it did not smoke again until the end of the roast.  I read that this coffee was better when the bean was roasted to a Full-City Roast so I took it in to the Second Crack when the flecking was quite evident.  The beans looked very good and dry except for a couple that showed signs of oiling.


I brewed with the syphon pot which uses a slightly higher than normal grind/water ratio.  The coffee I would say was strong because of this but not so strong that bitterness became a factor.  

On a scale from 1 - 10 I rate this coffee a 9 - Right up there with the Peaberry.  The aroma is fruity like a sweet-and-sour sauce and very pleasing to the nose.  The flavor was solid and smooth as it boasted of a cocoa-bean note as well as a mellow tone.  The brightness of this cup was medium though it was quite complex and deep.  The body of this cup was buttery and weighed on the pallet long enough to let you know it was there and lingered on the tongue like a fond memory.

Papau New Guinea - Peaberry

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If you have not seen the new Press Release you can click here to see it.  I think it will be worth your time - but I am biased of course.




I roasted one of my favorite beans last night and am getting ready to go brew some now.  It is amazing to me that my coffee excites me as it does.


70% of this crop is used by Australia and Germany so the rest of the world is lucky (and I mean that) to get the other 30%.  It makes this coffee a little more rare in the states.


The flavor of this coffee is absolutely complex as it contains layer after layer of vivid flavors that require palatial separation to be understood.  The first time my wife and I sampled this bean we were floored by the flavors that all swam together in the one cup which seems to be characteristic to the peaberry - my wife described the experience like a dinner plate of food all mixed together needing to be separated.  This coffee is absolutely amazing - Mmmm, I cannot wait.


EASTER EGG!!!  There are only a few more days left for you to find the easter egg on the Anchor Bay Roasts website.  Find it and you will be added to the names in the drawing for this month.

Kimel Peaberry

This is still my favorite coffee. It is smooth, it is strong, and it is characteristic beyond measure. Really, I sit here with my eyes wet with tears sipping this batch that I roasted this afternoon and I swear that there must be a Thanks Giving meal in this cup. I think if it were a dietary supplement that it would make you thin, if were a make-up it would make you beautiful, if it were a hair gel it would grow new hair, and if it were a little blue pill like Viagra it would - well, you know.

Anyway, I really believe that this is the best coffee in the world...

Peaberry Showdown

Papua New Guinea - Kimel Peaberry
Kenya - Kahura Peabery
Tanzania - Kigoma Peaberry

When only one can be the best, I am on the job, and I put the coffee to the test. The other day my wife suggested that we do a taste test and explore the three types of Peaberry coffees that I currently have. So we did. She and I both sampled all three types, and we rated them according to Aroma, Flavor, Body, Complexity, and Uniqueness. Here were the results.

*****Kimel Peaberry*****

Aroma: John- 7 Megan- 8
Flavor: John- 8 Megan- 8
Body: John- 6 Megan- 4
Complexity: John- 4 Megan- 4
Uniqueness: John- 10 Megan- 10
TOTALS: John- 35 Megan- 26 (61)

*****Kahura Peaberry*****
Aroma: John- 7 Megan- 6
Flavor: John- 8 Megan- 6
Body: John- 5 Megan- 7
Complexity: John- 4 Megan- 8
Uniqueness: John- 10 Megan- 6
TOTALS: John- 34 Megan- 35 (69)

*****Kigoma Peaberry*****
Aroma: John- 9 Megan- 5
Flavor: John- 7 Megan- 7
Body: John- 4 Megan- 8
Complexity: John- 7 Megan- 7
Uniqueness: John- 10 Megan- 7
TOTALS: John- 37 Megan- 34 (71)

Since I am writing this I will describe my experience as my wife will have to speak for herself.

As I roasted these beans I had a tough time hearing them crack and so I ended up with 3 different levels of roast with each batch. The Kimel was Dark Roasted, the Kahura was darker roasted, and the Kigoma was sweating oil when I was finished with it. (Mmmmmm - French Roasted coffee)

I liked the Kigoma best for its Aroma. This one jumped out at me but It is completely possible that it had the best aroma because it was the darkest roasted. But, for whatever reason, it was a great Aroma.

The Kimel and the Kahura were the best tasting as they both demonstrated a complex Flavor that made you happy to be alive. This is not to say that the Kigoma made you wish for death but either my palatte was tired by time I got to it or it was not as good as the rest as far as Flavor went.

The Kimel seemed to have the best Body but then after loking at how the Body numbers dropped with the progress of the sampling I suspect that my subjectivity may have been in question.

With Complexity I was looking for definite taste attributes like floral, woody, and nutty. In this arena the Kigoma stood out as it had a definite nutty/woody attribute in its flavor.

I scored each of the 3 coffees with a 10 for Uniqueness because each of them are wholly unique from regular Arabica or Robusta coffees. I did not compare them against one another but with coffee in general.

By the end of our testing my favorite wound up being Kigoma with a combined score of 37 points. I attribute this to it having the best Aroma and only being one point below the rest in Flavor. So there you have it, if you are ever at the coffee shop and the person behind the counter ever asks you what type of Peaberry you would like, look then straigt in the eye and proudly proclaim that you would like a cup od Kigoma Peaberry... (snort) I'm only kidding, none of the coffee shops around you are sophisticated enough to actually serve anything but the swill that you are used to. (snort, snort)

Moving on... Upon completion of the testing I simply blended all three types of the Peaberry together and made a super tasting brew with an awesome body. When blending coffees it will ussually combine the good and the bad and the resultant coffee is either one or the other but since none of these three was ever bad the result of the blend is that the strengths of each Peaberry strengthened the experience of the whole cup.

Until next time - Happy Roasting!!!

You know? If I were to start a coffee shop I would sell coffees by individual type, roast the green beans while you wait, grind it in a fancy-shmantcy Burr grinder, and serve it to you in a one cup French Press as you sit in an over-stuffed chair with your favorite book. Aww, who'm I kidding? That sort of coffee shop would be too expensive to own and operate. Oh well, one can dream can't he?

Kigoma Peaberry

Tanzania

My wife suggested that I roast this batch well past the second crack but just before charcoal. She said that the peaberry always seem to have a green taste and she wanted to know if French roasting the beans would knock the green out of it. It did -and how.

This roast was so good that I thought I had a professional roaster make these beans. The only thing missing was the snobbish barista, the calming brown colors, and the college beatnik sitting in the corner trying to look cool with his Oxford Dictionary of Modern Poetry. Had Little Orphan Annie's Daddy WarBucks tasted this brew he would have commissioned me to full-time employment in the making of coffee beans.

This bean makes roasting easy and encourages the lowly roaster to have great aspirations of hope among a world that is too easily tricked into drinking bad coffee because of the cream, sugar, and flavors galore.

If I were in the business of roasting beans, I would sell this coffee at a premium - and you would buy it.

Kahura Peabery

Kenya

I just roasted another Peabery - this makes the forth kind so far. As I type I am waiting for it to fully steep so that I can taste it. I am so excited I might just wet myself (ok, not really but I am excited).

This bean seemed to be more dense than any other bean. I usually roast 2/3 C of green beans without incident but this time the air was not moving the beans to roast them evenly. So, I did what anyone would do - I stood there shaking the roaster.

(Be right back, I have to get the coffee and I think I hear the baby crying)
(Alright, I got the coffee and the baby is babbling and contained safely in her crib)

This cup smells wonderful, like an autumn evening after the leaves have fallen. I mean, this cup smells "take her home to mother" good. It is a pleasure to just sit and smell her beauty and imagine that first kiss. When I dared to lean over for a peck on the cheek I was rewarded with a passion that only a woman can deliver. The flavor is woody and nutty with a depth that only Alice's rabbit hole can know. This flavor begs for a pallet to cause to rejoice and it makes the angels sing. If only I were in the business of roasting coffee - the world would know peace.

I highly recommend this Kahura Peabery...

Kigoma Peaberry

Tanzania

Just like the Paupa New Guinea, this Peaberry possesses a sophisticated flavor that only the most seasoned coffee lovers will appreciate. Like the flavor of Borolo Pio Cesare, this coffee is full of complexity.

This is a good coffee but one I fear will not be liked by most poeple. It really must be drank like a wine because one must approach it like the connesuer of wine rather than a teenager drinking a Budweiser. I do appreciate it for a change but the flavor is odd (sort of like chickory flavoring) and so it will not become my favorite.

Sulawesi

Kalossi

The taste of the this Sulawesi is unique in a peaberry-ish sort of way. Its dominant attributes are its remarkable, almost chocolate, aroma and its Spicy note which makes it flavor akin to the peaberry.

The raw beans were a darker green - indicating a higher moisture content. They roasted to a very nice Full City without creating much chaff. The smell from the roasting process lingered quite a long time (in comparison to other beans) which made the house quite pleasant.

I am going to like the rest of these beans for sure.

Kigoma Peaberry

Tanzania

Just like the Paupa New Guinea, this Peaberry possesses a sophisticated flavor that only the most seasoned coffee lovers will appreciate. Like the flavor of Borolo Pio Cesare, this coffee is full of complexity.

This is a good coffee but one I fear will not be liked by most people. It really must be drank like a wine because one must approach it like the taster of dine wine rather than a teenager drinking a Budweiser. I do appreciate it for a change but the flavor is odd (sort of like chicory flavoring) and so it will not become my favorite.

Kimel Peaberry - 3

Papua New Guinea

I roasted the last of my Peaberry to give as a gift to friends. Thankfully I had enough to roast myself a pot.

This was City Roast which is going to really impress. It has an outstanding aroma and an exquisite flavor. If you ever get a chance to get some of the PNG Kimel Peaberry don't let it pass you by because it is excellent.

Kimel Peaberry - 2

Papua New Guinea

I prepared a 12 cup pot of this Papau New Guinea at a Full City roast (2 oz. of grounds) and took it to a meeting for people to try. Some people drank it black (as coffee is intended to be enjoyed) while others put all kinds of creamers and sugars in theirs (really, why bother with coffee in the first place?) but everyone enjoyed this coffee. One guy in particular knew that this was freshly roasted but forgot as it was 5 minutes before hitting his drink. He literally interrupted the meeting with a surprised exclaimation of how good the coffee was.

As I was brewing this pot my wife came out of the other room and asked me what I was cooking. She said that from the other room it smelled like I was cooking some sort of breakfast meat. It must have been the spiciness in the aroma.

I am sorry now that I did not buy more than 1 pound of this bean, it has been one of my favorites.

Kimel Peaberry

Papua New Guinea

This is a complete and unexpected surprise. I do not know if this is what I was to expect from a Peaberry (sort of like the hoppy flavor is expected of an IPA in the world of beers) but this almost tastes like something other than coffee. It is nothing if it is not a new experience.

The Kimel Peabery possesses a sort of spiciness which is a strong attribute in this coffee. One person describes this as the slight flavor of thyme which resonates as true with me. I also sense a fine buttery flavor and feel as well.

I roasted 2 oz. of this bean to a lighter City roast and ground it mediumly for a 12 cup pot. The brew was a perfect cinnamon brown with no hint of emerald around its edge. It had a unique aroma, from bean to brew, which should have tipped me off to what was in store but not many beans actually taste like they smell.

This Papau New Guinea (PNG) Kimel Peaberry is quite extraordinary and quite a pleasurable experience. I do believe that this is one of those coffees that can be used as a tool to aid in personal times of devotion and worship.

From 1 to 10 I rate this coffee a 9.