t level since November 1994 when they averaged 153.33 US cents/lb.
Tanzania Peaberry Shiwanda Estate
Shiwanda Estate is located in the Mbozi District of Southwestern Tanzania, an older estate that saw a resurgence in coffee production in the late 90’s. The estate is roughly 500 hectares of land, and 150 planted in coffee. The estate is planted in mostly Bourbon types, and the altitude reaches as high as 2000 meters. The Peaberry is the 15 screen size round beans that develop when one of the two seed embryos dies. The other receives all the nutrition, and instead of growing with one rounded side, and one flat side (the side that faces it’s cohabitant), it forms into a small, and dense round bean. Peaberries are often thought to have higher sugar content, and are often more fruit forward than their flat bean counterparts. This is definitely a dense coffee bean, and can take the heat in the roaster.
Many have asked why is the Peaberry a sought after coffee? Well, peaberries have somehow managed to have created a mystique about them because how it forms, as stated earlier. That all the goodness of the coffee is only in one bean! Of course another reason, a more supply and demand of commercialization is the fact that the Japanese market practically buys all the conventional coffees from each crop as they do for a number of African countries. Given that the peaberries have been sorted out and a market came into being in Europe and North America having great desire for the exotic Peaberry!
