The mystery of the gender of coffee beans: understanding what is meant by "round beans"? What are the characteristics?

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The mystery of the gender of coffee beans: understanding what is meant by "round beans"?

I often hear people say that friends and colleagues go to Indonesia and bring back the local precious, rare and valuable "round bean" coffee powder. But what is a round bean? What is a mother bean? Is there a gender difference in coffee? The answer, of course. There is a good explanation. Let's take a look at why there are such terms as "round bean" and "mother bean".

Before we talk about the mystery of the sex of round beans and mother beans, let's first know a few things. First of all, the coffee tree itself is not divided into male and female trees. In fact, coffee flower is a plant with both male and female organs, belonging to the family Rubiaceae. The coffee bean itself is the core seed of the coffee fruit before it is roasted. It can grow on its own when it falls into the soil, even if only one tree can grow the coffee fruit. Since it is hermaphroditic, there is no difference between male and female trees, and naturally there should be no difference between round beans and mother beans. Furthermore, the original English word of "round bean" is "Peaberry" or the abbreviation "PB", but it is not called "Male Beans". The word "round bean" is just a common name in Chinese. in fact, he has another name, called "round bean".

Raw bean VS flat bean

Round beans (round beans) are classified as defective beans in botanical theory for several reasons: one is that coffee beans suffer from diseases and insect pests before bearing fruit, or it may be caused by coffee trees suffering from prolonged drought or malnutrition. In addition, coffee beans at the ends of branches also have a higher chance of forming round beans, which may be due to poor growth due to more opportunities to be exposed. When the normal form of coffee fruit is peeled, there are two coffee nuts (seeds) inside, called "Type-1". This is the most normal form of coffee beans, that is, the mother beans or flat beans in the theory of male and female beans. The other is the elliptical shape of "Type-2", which has only one seed, which is what we call round beans. In fact, there is only a difference in growth form between the two, not a gender distinction. The common name in Chinese is indeed easy to be misunderstood.

Some coffee lovers think that Peaberry beans have a better mellow thickness and charming aroma, and taste sweeter. In addition, because its output is relatively scarce, Peaberry has become a commercial means to be bid up and sold at a high price, but in fact, Peaberry beans are sometimes discarded because they are regarded as defective beans in some producing areas. To them, Peaberry has no commercial value to speak of.

It is still difficult to determine whether round beans (round beans) taste better in the end. At present, the common round beans on the market, well-known are Hawaii KONA round beans, Tanzania round beans, Jamaica Zhenglan Mountain Coffee round beans and so on. Usually as long as the price of round beans is bound to be high, whether it is worth it or not depends on the ruler in the mind of the drinker.