Lavanta Coffee Roasters Tanzania Peaberry Direct Trade Coffee, Green, 0.9kg

If you live near a coffee roaster you can do better than this. I used to before I moved to a very rural area and there are no roasters within 100 miles of me. But if you can order this with free shipping it is the same price you'd pay if you drove to a roaster - not bad for not leaving your house!Some of the critical reviews state they did not receive true peaberry. From the criticisms I learned peaberry is not a varietal like I always thought it was but a naturally occurring morphology when the coffee cherry develops with one bean instead of two (apparently this happens in all coffee varietals around 5-10% of the time). So I have no idea what varietal from Tanzania this is, but it's quite good!Peaberries have to be picked out by hand so they're usually more expensive than the non-peaberry version of the same bean. Yet this is one of the more inexpensive Lavanta offerings. And it definitely contains SOME regular beans, I'd guess 2-3%. But considering how much effort goes into sorting, I can't complain!I always roast as light as I can once the bean flavors (NOT the roast flavor) become prominent. We've been roasting these (in our hot air popper) on average 1:20 after the first crack. We only make pour over with a reusable filter. Delicious. Smooth, earthy, very slightly sweet. Low acidity. This is the only Lavanta offering we've tried (and got it twice we liked it so much).With a nearby roaster you can explore organic and fair trade versions of their single origin coffees. We don't have that luxury anymore, but we are very happy with this. We're definitely planning on trying their Sumatra Mandheling and Ethiopean Yirggechefe next!

I always have on hand a Kenyan or Tanzania bean. If you like beans from Mt Kilimanjaro these peaberry won’t disappoint you; it has a bright clean smooth favor void of bitterness or grassy hints. I’ve placed 2 orders and been happy with both shipments. My 4 photos show 5 roastings between light (ending of 1st crack) and dark (30+ seconds into 2nd crack with some oily sheen).My only note of many marked as excellent was pulled at 10 minutes at 435° laser probe and 20 seconds into 2nd crack (this reading of a pair of red laser beams at the bottom of a smokey Whirley popcorn popper are an approximate reference point). This temperature and duration in 2nd crack has been repeated several times. However, on one occasion that I can’t explain I couldn’t get the beans after a reasonable time to enter 2nd crack and pulled them before my impatience grew; this has only happened once before and that bean was a peaberry too.My 4 pics of different roastings all use a Stainless Whirley Pop on a Bayou Classic cooker.1.) light roast, my note indicates a single first crack at 6:10, regular random 1st cracks 6:30 at 380° (laser probe, ¿calibrated?); dumped at 7:30 & 415°2.) Med+ roast, pulled at 410°+, these are darker than a batch pulled at 415° (laser probe was more or less accurate one of the two times)3.) Dark w/med roast, pulled at 430° and 30+ seconds into 2nd crack4.) light to medium roast, pulled at 415° and medium to dark roast, pulled at 435° and 20 seconds into 2nd crack. I often blend a mixture of two roasting unless one cups really well.

I've always wanted to attempt roasting my own coffee so finally ordered raw beans to experiment. After some trial and error, I ended up roasting on a cast iron skillet in my kitchen. Lots of lessons learned, such as not to blow into the pan as the chaff starts coming off the beans. Makes a fun mess. After 20 minutes or so of constant stirring, the beans had a nice dark brown sheen to them which I'd peg between medium and dark roast. Making a cup of coffee the next day after I roasted the beans yielded one of the strongest caffeinated cups of coffee I've ever had; tasted great as well! Wish I could experiment with an actual roaster but don't want another gadget taking up space in the kitchen, will stick with experimenting with skillet roasting.

Updated review! Weeks ago I had a bad review here. Bought the raw coffee and said it's the worst purchase EVER! However that bad purchase led me to an amazing passion for roasting my own coffee beans! I LOVE IT. AND SO REWARDING AND AMAZING! Buy a metal skillet, a hot plate, and viola! My favorite is anything peaberry, but you can try your favorite! Light roast, medium or dark... whatever.Funny how life is... sometimes the wrong things will take you to where you should be in life if you make lemonade out of lemon's, or in this instance, coffee from coffee beans!Apologies to levanta's for the bad review!

For those wondering a pea berry is found in one out of every thirty coffee "cherries" (fruit). That makes this purchase an outstanding value. I am a home roaster, roasting for an espresso style. Pea berry adds a robust addition to any coffee style, so I use about a 10-1 single origin coffee to the Tanzanian pea berry. It adds a body and richness, since I roast no more than medium-medium dark.