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The coffee fruit is called a cherry
primarily because it is about the same size, shape and color as an
actual cherry. Beneath the bright red skin is the pulp, a sweet, sticky
yellow substance, which becomes slimy mucilage towards the center of the
fruit, where it surrounds the coffee beans, which are actually the
seeds. There are normally two beans per cherry, facing each other's flat
side, like peanut halves. On the surface of the beans is a very thin,
diaphanous membrane, called the silver skin. Each bean (and its silver
skin) is encased in a tough, cream-colored, protective bean-shaped
shell, or jacket, called parchment, or pergamino, which serves to keep
the bean separate from the mucilage. Beans destined to be seed beans for
growing new coffee plants must remain in their parchment if they are to
sprout. Normal coffee trees
sometimes produce a few smaller-than-average cherries in which only one
bean forms. This single bean, called variously a peaberry, perla or
caracol, will not have a flat side; rather, it will be small and almost
completely round. Sorted out and collected together, peaberries sell at
a slightly higher price than do normal coffee beans from the same trees.
many people swear that the peaberry flavor is better, although it may
just be that, because of the special sorting, few, if any, defective
beans are able to slip through.
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