Gourmet Coffee Beans: What's in a Name?

Imagine waking up to a cup of coffee. Now imagine waking up to a steaming hot mug of gourmet excelso peaberry hard bean coffee. So much of the enjoyment for us coffee lovers goes beyond the taste (although that is the most important element) to the feel of the warm mug, the aroma, and even the name of our first drink of the day. As for the excelso peaberry listed above—I made it up. That's not a coffee I sell, although I could certainly, and legitimately, rename a peaberry coffee with that moniker.

Here's the thing.

The terms used to describe coffee beans can refer to grade, quality, size or other coffee characteristics, and can be very confusing. Here are some of those frequently used terms and what they actually do, or don't, mean to you and your cup of coffee.

Excelso and Supremo- While these sure sound like they are used to denote superior quality, they actually refer to the size of the bean. While it sounds good for marketing purposes, any lower quality Robusta bean sold in a tin can on the grocery store shelf can accurately display this label.

Strictly Hard Bean- While this doesn't sound nearly as compelling as an excelso, it is a much better determinate of quality because it refers to beans grown at higher altitudes. Higher altitudes, and the cooler temperatures, lead to harder, denser and more intense tasting beans.

Hard Bean- Ironically, this refers to a lower grade coffee bean. See what a difference a single word can make?

Peaberry- Our Tanzania Peaberry coffee is one of my favorite gourmet coffees that we sell here at Brown and Jenkins. But guess what? The region and country of this bean is much more important that the flowery Peaberry label. A Peaberry is simply a coffee bean that holds a single, rather than double bean, inside its shell. It's also rounder in appearance as it doesn't have the flat one sided edge of most coffee beans. But it sure sounds more exotic than calling it a single coffee bean!

So my best advice to you is to focus on the country and region when you are looking for information that will lead you to the coffee intensities and flavors you most enjoy.

Until our next cup,
Sandy Riggen