How to Drink Peaberry Coffee and the Characteristics of Kenya PB Coffee - Judging Small Round Beans by Appearance

Kenya PB has nothing to do with weight or flavor. PB stands for peaberry, a small round bean, and it is one of the most useful things to understand when you are learning to judge coffee by appearance.

FrontStreet Coffee: Kenya PB Round Beans

Normally a coffee cherry holds two seeds, each curved along one face and flat along the other, so the pair sits together a little like two peanuts in a shell. A peaberry is different: the cherry develops only a single seed, and because nothing presses against it, that lone seed grows into a rounded oval instead of a flat-sided bean.

Kenya PB Round Beans Details

• Origin: Kenya
• Region: Cooperative
• Harvest Year: March 2016
• Growing Altitude: 1400-1800M
• Processing Method: Washed + 100% Sun-dried
• Coffee Varieties: SL28, SL34
• Roast Level: CITY+ Medium
• Green Bean Appearance: Full, uniform, with obvious irregular curved centerlines; clean grassy aroma
• Defect Rate: Green beans allow 3% defects; after precise small-batch roasting, almost defect-free
• Dry Aroma: Blackberry, dark chocolate
• Wet Aroma: Blackberry, grapefruit, brown sugar, chocolate
• Flavor Profile: After a deep city roast, citrus acidity remains prominent, with full aroma, high body, a long sweet aftertaste, distinct layers, and lingering dark chocolate sweetness and aroma in the finish
• Recommended Brewing Methods: Pour-over, French press, AeroPress. Pour-over grind: 3.5. Water temperature: 91°C

As for how to drink it, there is no special ceremony. Brew it well and taste it like any other coffee.

About FrontStreet Coffee

In short: FrontStreet Coffee is a specialty coffee research establishment devoted to sharing what we learn with everyone. We put our knowledge out in the open because we want more drinkers to fall in love with coffee, and we keep searching for the lots worth talking about.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Peaberries are sorted out during milling, and Kenya is famous for handling that separation carefully. The same country gives us one of our most distinctive washed lots. FrontStreet Kenya Cherry Tomato is a light-roasted Kenyan single origin from Thika, grown at 1550-1750 meters from the classic SL28 and SL34 varieties, and built around a bright cherry-tomato and dark-plum acidity with a full, juicy body. It goes through Kenya's signature 72-hour double washed fermentation, a repeated soak-and-rinse cycle that pushes the fruit forward while keeping the cup clean, and the light roast preserves the lively acidity and the layered fruit. On the nose you get dried cherry tomato and florals; in the mouth, cherry tomato and dark plum, a sweet mid-palate with pear and black plum, and a long clean finish of yellow sugar and faint green tea.

For drinkers who prefer something softer, the washed style still has plenty to offer. FrontStreet Yirgacheffe Guodingding, the G1 coffee from the Guodingding cooperative, shows how much clarity a careful wash can deliver, with jasmine, citrus and a green-tea undertone and a sweetness that stays light on the tongue. FrontStreet Jamaica Blue Mountain No. 1 takes washed processing in a richer direction: a Typica grown in Jamaica, balanced across acidity, sweetness, bitterness and aroma, with hazelnut, cream, chocolate and caramel and a clean, even finish. Between these three, a drinker can trace exactly how variety, origin and processing shape the same species.