Description
Tanzania BCT Select Peaberry is sourced from a group of 235 family-owned farms located in the Mbozi district within the Songwe region of Tanzania. Producers harvest and deliver cherry to a centralized processing station where the coffee is depulped, fermented, washed and dried. The aggregate processing stations have been established in the last three years to provide producers with a centrally located processing facility that can process coffee more consistently and ensure better quality, which then results in better prices from the international market and more money funneling down to the small holder farmers.
Part of what makes Tanzania coffee so good is the processing is still done the old way, by hand. While most washed processed these days use mechanical machines to remove the fruit instantly. These are put through an old world washed processing which includes hitting a fermentation to loosen and remove the fruit. Depulped the same day they’re harvested, then fermented in cement tanks for anywhere from 24–72 hours to get the fruit off. They are then washed clean of mucilage and sorted through water channels before being spread on raised beds to dry, or dried in mechanical driers (if weather is bad). Sometimes they are given a 8–12-hour post-washing soak before they are dried, which is classically what made Kenyan coffee so famous (double washing) but is seldomly used these days.
Tasting Notes: Tanzanian peaberry is always high on our list for darker roast beans: rich and chocolaty cups with robust and unique spice notes. This one being fresh as can be works pretty well from light to dark, if too light it can get a little grassy/herbal, but a clean and balanced cup with just a little development past first crack, a city+ roast they would call it. Retains its cleanliness into the darker roast points. Lighter roasts are going to be more acidic, not quite like a Kenya but a pretty clear citric edge balancing with a little hint of chocolate. Hit the roast right and you will see a pinch of caramel sweetness with a longer setup, but get it a bit too light, will have an herbal edge. Medium to dark roasts are pretty bullet proof. Medium will still show a hint of acidity, darker will lose it all. Either roast level will be nice and chocolaty with some spice behind it. If your a cold brew fan, lighter roasts points were pretty awesome, no risk of herbal and it popped out the sweeter caramel note much easier, a lighter bodied and sweeter cup.
Roasting Notes: For most, a medium to dark roasts will be preferred: lighter roasts can be a little acidic and won’t developer the richer chocolate factor found at fuller roast levels. Pretty even roasting, medium to low chaff levels. Peaberries do not move quite as well in air roasters, often wise to reduce batch size just a pinch for better rotation. We found a quicker roast accentuates some of the sweeter tone and crispness which was a good thing. Screen of coffee is medium to small beans, average sized for a Tanzania Peaberry.
Amaretto, spices, and mild fresh coffee cherry flavors with tart acidity and mild fruit-like sweetness.
Peaberries are a naturally occurring mutation of the coffee seed that forms a single, small, rounder unit than the two “flat beans” that typically sit face-to-face inside a coffee cherry. While somewhere between 5–12 percent of any yield can be expected to naturally develop peaberries, some coffee varieties and origins tend to see higher occurrence of them, while in others they are uniformly sorted out of each lot in order to maintain screen-size uniformity.
In the case of Tanzania, the majority of the coffee exported is bought by Japanese roasters, who prize bean-size uniformity and see peaberries as being an undesirable defect. For this reason, the peaberries are often unsold to the Japanese market, and are the majority of what is available to Western buyers. Some swear by peaberries having a degree of flavor potency that normal flat beans lack, and others can’t tell the difference. They do tend to be slightly pricier on account of both their more limited quantity (since peaberries occur in a smaller percentage of coffee overall) and the labor involved in sorting them out.
M Orman (verified owner) –
I have always enjoyed beans that I can roast to create the flavor of a cup of drinking chocolate. I can name a few pricier beans than these that cause a money sweat getting the roast dialed in and then aren’t as tasty as these beans are. I roasted a batch to city+ and it is awesome. AWESOME! I’d recommend you stock up. I did. This can be used as a chocolate note for a blend or as a straight hot cuppa chocolatey goodness. Thank you to my guys at Burmans and the coop that produced this awesome find. Been on the hunt for this and now I have it!
Tim Bowley (verified owner) –
Big fan of Tanzanian coffee, really enjoyed my first batch of this run.
going to try and faster roast nd see how much the flavor changes.
Ed G (verified owner) –
Distinctive and delicious. Roasted to a Full City + brings out nice bakers chocolate, spice and smoke.
Alex (verified owner) –
Such an excellent coffee. It stands with beans at double+ the cost. Nailed it with the first small batch, so probably an easy roasting bean. Midway through first crack, it came out so clean and bright with rich tea notes. Really unexpected. Trying a darker roast next based on the comments above.
Dave P (verified owner) –
This gets five stars from my wife & I. I tend to roast right until the start of second crack.
Michelle Knudsen (verified owner) –
Easy to roast and just love the flavor. I’ve been roasting for 2 years and I finally found a bean I will reorder!
Ron E (verified owner) –
Couple of minutes past first crack and it was a “CHOCOLATE HOME RUN”. Roasted 4 lbs in three batches on my Bullet and will need to get some more
John G Turner (verified owner) –
Bought this to see how it compares with the Ethiopian Harrar. Not disappointed. Roasted to 2nd crack. Very nice cup.
Cassandra Hertz (verified owner) –
Gotta agree with everyone in here, very easy to roast. Must be the small bean size?.. Super smooth, smell better (amazing) than it taste really. Just a bit weak with the flavour, but not too much, im always getting this bean until it gets pricier lol
Catherine Marley (verified owner) –
I am a Yemen coffee addict, and although theis Tanzanian Peaberry lacks some of the body and complexity of the Yemeni that I love, it compensates with the most wonderful dark chocolate – that soothing cup of cocoa you had at bedtime when you were a child, but with that unmistakable coffee flavor as well. And it costs a third of what the Yemeni does. I roast it to a Vienna, high heat upto first crack, then turn down the heat until it reaches that dark red-brown with a satin finish like a pair of italian leather shoes. I am going to order more today. I don’t want to run out of this one!
tpacumio (verified owner) –
I’ve been roasting for about 8 years and just can’t drink any coffee but what we roast. I even take it on vacation. This batch I’ve ordered 3 times now because of the dozens and dozens of different coffee’s I have bought this is my absolute favorite! We go to just the start of 2nd crack and it is a very rich very chocolatey cup. The beans are really sorted nicely and it’s rare I find any I have to pick out. I also haven’t had any nasty cups that can sometimes be had if a bad bean sneaks through. I’m really hoping this comes back again and again.
Rushad Daruwala (verified owner) –
Light and Medium roasts are bright and spicy.
Zdravko Kiril Sazdanoff (verified owner) –
Just ordered my 2nd batch. First lb I roasted at medium, just about 1:30 min after 1st crack and it was OK. Next lb I roasted to 2nd crack and it was incredible! Produced lot of velvety crema in my espresso shots.