(We originally posted this in 2021. You can read more of our original ideas in our archive.)
Problem: Even if coffee is grown perfectly, it may not taste great if it’s not roasted evenly: a perfect batch of beans can go to waste. Moreover, not all beans are conducive to the best flavor of coffee.
Solution: Last week while on the Big Island in Hawaii, I took a tour of the largest coffee farm that produces Kona coffee. Kona coffee is one of the most expensive coffees in the world and is cultivated on the slopes of Hualalai and Mauna Loa in the North and South Kona Districts of the Big Island of Hawaii. What makes it so special? Well, the weather of sunny mornings, cloud or rain in the afternoon, little wind, and mild nights combined with porous, mineral-rich volcanic soil create favorable coffee growing conditions.
And it shows in the taste too.
The body is rich and eating the coffee brewed on the farm is an experience like none other (this is coming from someone who drinks an abysmal 12 cups of coffee a year!).
During the tour, I learned about the coffee growing, harvesting, roasting, and shipping processes. While each has an area for innovation that revolutionize the $465 billion coffee market (as estimated by Research and Markets in 2020). I was most intrigued, however, by the idea of Peaberries.
If you know nothing about coffee (like me last week), Peaberries are mutated coffee beans. While traditional beans grow as two halves of the same pod, with Peaberries the two pods mutate to become one rounder pod. As described by Coffee detective in his article Peaberry Coffee – Myth and Marketing,
Coffee trees produce red or purple cherries which typically contain two seeds. Open the fruit and you’ll find two green coffee beans, face to face.
When the coffee cherries are harvested, between 5% to 10% of the cherries will contain only one bean. Coffee cherries containing just one bean are referred to as peaberries.
It’s as simple as that.
These peaberry beans are smaller and rounder than regular beans, and don’t have that flat side so characteristic of a regular bean.
So why does this matter? Well, given the shape of the peaberries, when roasted they give a much more even roast than traditional beans: eliminated the occasional unpleasant flavors that may arise from traditional roasting methods that could burn one or both side of the coffee bean. Kenneth Davids of CoffeeReview describes this further:
My experience suggests that peaberries always produce a somewhat different cup from normal beans from the same crop (in other words, present a distinct variation on the same sensory theme), but not different in a consistent enough way to support broad generalizations about quality.
In short, while not every peaberry is better they certainly are different and for some beans they may beget a more intriguing or full taste.
Thus, the business would focus on converting regular beans to peaberries through artificially rounding coffee greens to be better shaped for roasting. Given the huge size of the coffee business, this niche skill (rounding a 300 to 330 mg bean) may not seem like a huge change to the industry; however, it provides a non-GMO alternative to producing the round seeds that create more uniquely flavored (and more expensive) coffees. In short, this business would give you a direct way to turn your existing coffee product into even more money through simply rounding the bean.
So what’s the growth of the coffee market broadly? Well as described by Research and Markets, “The market is mostly driven by Europe with higher per capita consumption and a move towards the culture of premium coffee. The Asian market is huge in volume, but the substitute tea is more in demand. The cafe culture in European countries and ever-increasing number of coffee shops across Northern America, Southern America, Asia And Oceania are escalating the global market. Furthermore, customers are becoming more aware of the quality and provenance of the coffee in their cup.”
Given these trends in quality and provenance, it seems inevitable that coffee growers and roasters will start to find ways to “level up” their coffee from the same beans. This business would act on the forefront of that movement.
Monetization: Selling this machine that rounds peaberries or offering peaberry-rounding-as-a-service.
Contributed by: Michael Bervell (Billion Dollar Startup Ideas)