5-Pound Rwanda Aa, Unroasted Green Arabica Coffee Beans, Fresh Current Crop Specialty Grade, Roast the Beans Yourself at Home on Your Roasting Equipment Prior to Using for Brewing Coffee

I just finished up my 8 pound sampler pack from Sweet Marias, and needed more coffee for my Behmor roaster. I'm on my 3rd batch of the Rwanda AA, and I simply love it. Smooth, sweet, not-bitter and aromatic. I will definitely be purchasing from these guys again.

Does not disappoint. I highly recommend this item.

My first roasting experience. Using SR540. My niece is in the coffee biz n got me hooked on Tanzania beans. So I had to give it go. I knew the exact flavor I was looking for and this bean does it. Yay!!! Hats off to Smokin Beans !!! I know where to go get awesome beans.

I've bought my body weight in beans from Smok'n Beans. The beans are solid as usual. great quality, no pieces, moldy beans very uniform in size. they roast very nicely. The flavor is a choice thing. I love this bean but I like a mellow medium dark flavor. That's how I roast mine. I drink my coffee black.

Makes great coffee

I love the flavor of these beans. I get a great creamy/nutty taste I was looking for. I use a hot air popper and these roast up pretty consistently. I had them at a lighter roast and the flavor was very good. I thought a darker roast might be even better but the espresso roast took all the flavor out and left the taste flat and thin.For me, the dark city roast gives me a great cuppa and I'll definitely order more.I did experiment and mixed some leftover Peruvian beans. That was ok but left me wanting to mix even more.

This review is specifically about the Tanzania Peaberry. As a caveat, I'm new to roasting and I use a cast iron pot rather than a roasting machine. I'll try to separate my failures as a coffee roaster from the product itself.When you think of coffee beans, you probably imagine a boat shape. They are flat on one end, rounded on the other and longer in the direction of the split in the top of the bean. Most coffee fruit (also known as berries) has two seeds. As the berry grows, the twin seeds press against each other and form the flat side of the coffee bean. But a small percentage of berries grow with just one seed. With no twin to push against, the seed grows without a flat side. Thus the peaberry is born.Generally peaberry is sold at a premium because they must be hand-sorted from other coffee beans. They are also considered better tasting then ordinary beans from the same crop. Exactly why depends on who you ask, but the two theories are: 1) more flavor is retained by the single bean and 2) peaberries roast better than regular beans. My experience suggests the later.Peaberries tend to be smaller than regular coffee beans. Since it's relatively easy to sort beans by size, selecting smaller beans is a good first step to separating peaberries. But smaller-than-normal regular beans will also be filtered at the same time as the peaberries. If you really want just the peaberries, you'll need to hand sort this coffee yourself before roasting. I don't fault the seller for not doing this since most of the beans are peaberry and hand sorting would increase the cost.I found that the smaller beans means there isn't much time from under- to over-roasted. Once I hear the first crack, I need to be ready to pull the beans off the heat and air cool them. For me, this coffee has a harsh taste if too lightly roasted and I'm not a fan of coffee roasted on the edge of burnt. Medium roast produces a fantastically smooth coffee that I enjoy.One of the difficulties is that the flat side of regular beans tends to remain in contact with the bottom of the pot. That means the regular beans mixed in with the peaberries burn on one side while the rest of the beans are still under-roasted. I've posted an image of two unroasted beans and two beans from my most recent batch that came out perfectly. You can see the peaberry has nicely browned, but the regular bean is blackened. It's likely the two types of beans crack at different times, which can be confusing. (It might not be clear without a reference item, but these are tiny beans compared to what you'd normally buy.)I estimate that less than 1 in 10 of the bean in my batch had a flat side. For me it's not worth sorting them out. (Though it might be interesting to do for science.) The amount of burning is trivial and the results remain excellent . . . if I time the roast correctly.

Beans arrived quick. We'll packed and fresh. Roasted at all levels and absolutely love it. Have ordered from company again since this order. Very happy with everything