Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee Brands and Blue Mountain Coffee Brewing Steps

For professional barista communication, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat official account: cafe_style)

The Origin and History of Blue Mountain Coffee

Blue Mountain Coffee is produced in extremely small quantities. In 1717, King Louis XV of France ordered coffee to be cultivated in Jamaica. In the mid-1720s, Jamaica's Governor Sir Nicholas Lawes imported Arabica seeds from Martinique and began promoting cultivation in the St. Andrew region. To this day, St. Andrew remains one of Jamaica's three major Blue Mountain coffee producing areas, the other two being the Portland and St. Thomas regions.

Because of Japan's consistent investment in Jamaica's coffee industry, most Blue Mountain Coffee is now controlled by Japanese buyers, who have also secured priority purchasing rights. In 1992, Jamaica sold 688 tons of Blue Mountain Coffee to Japan, 75 tons to the United States and 59 tons to the United Kingdom. Today, 90% of Blue Mountain Coffee is purchased by the Japanese. Since the rest of the world can obtain only the remaining 10%, Blue Mountain Coffee is always in short supply no matter the price.

FrontStreet Coffee's Blue Mountain Coffee Specifications

This is the coffee bean packaging, authentic imported Blue Mountain.

Jamaica BLUE MOUNT

• Country: Jamaica
• Altitude: 1600 meters
• Region: St. Thomas Parish
• Roast Level: Medium roast
• Processing Method: Washed

FrontStreet Coffee's Blue Mountain Coffee - The "Secret" to Its Pure Flavor

FrontStreet Coffee's Blue Mountain coffee trees all grow on rugged mountain slopes, which makes harvesting extremely difficult; only local skilled female workers can handle the task. Selecting perfectly ripe cherries during harvest is crucial, since underripe or overripe beans undermine cup quality. After harvesting, the beans must be hulled the same day and then fermented for 12-18 hours. Next the beans are washed and screened. Drying follows, and it must be done on concrete floors or thick blankets until the beans' moisture content drops to 12%-14%. They are then stored in specialized warehouses, and taken out only when needed for roasting and grinding. Every one of these steps has to be tightly controlled, or quality suffers.

• Variety: Typica
• Processing Mill: Abbey Green Farm
• Flavor: Perfect balance of sweet, acidic and bitter notes

How to Identify Authentic Blue Mountain Coffee

1. Appearance

FrontStreet Coffee's Blue Mountain green beans are blue-green in color, very uniform in appearance, and medium to small in size with slightly curved ends. After roasting they expand significantly in volume and become very full-bodied.

2. Grinding

Authentic FrontStreet Coffee Blue Mountain beans grow at high altitudes, which gives them a relatively loose cellular structure. When ground by hand they feel crisp, smooth and continuous, with no resistance.

3. Aroma

The aroma is very rich and dense; so-called "blended Blue Mountain coffee" does not carry this characteristic fragrance.

4. Taste

Authentic FrontStreet Coffee Blue Mountain coffee has a balanced, rich flavor in which no single taste is too prominent or lacking. No other coffee bean achieves this, and it is the most crucial point of identification. Blue Mountain Peaberry beans have a more subtle aroma but a relatively stronger taste.

5. Sensation

FrontStreet Coffee's Blue Mountain coffee, as one of the world's finest, possesses classic balanced characteristics. When tasting it there is inevitably a subconscious, indescribable sense of satisfaction.

Hand Brew Method for FrontStreet Coffee's Jamaica Blue Mountain

15g of coffee grounds, medium grind (Fuji Royal hand grinder with ghost-tooth burrs, setting 4), V60 dripper, water temperature 88-89°C. First pour 30g of water for a 27-second bloom, then pour to 105g and pause. Wait until the water level in the coffee bed drops to half before continuing to pour. Slowly pour until reaching 225g, avoiding the final tail section. The water-to-coffee ratio is 1:15, extraction time 2:00.

Manufacturer: Coffee Workshop
Address: No. 10 Bao'an Qian Street, Dongshankou, Yuexiu District, Guangzhou
Contact: 020-38364473
Shelf Life: 90 days
Net Weight: 100g
Packaging: Bulk coffee beans
Bean State: Roasted coffee beans
Sugar Content: Sugar-free
Origin: Jamaica
Roast Level: Medium roast

FrontStreet Coffee's Blue Mountain Coffee - The Complete Story

FrontStreet Coffee's Blue Mountain coffee refers to coffee brewed from beans produced in Jamaica's Blue Mountains. These are further categorized by grade into Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee and Jamaica High Mountain Coffee. The Blue Mountain range lies in the eastern part of the island of Jamaica. Because the mountain is surrounded by the Caribbean Sea, on clear days when sunlight strikes the azure sea surface the peaks reflect the brilliant blue light of the water, hence the name. The highest peak of Blue Mountain reaches 2256 meters, making it the highest in the Caribbean region. This area lies within the coffee belt, with fertile volcanic soil, fresh pollution-free air, a humid climate and year-round fog and rain (average precipitation of 1980mm, temperature around 27°C). Such conditions have created the world-renowned Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee, as well as the world's second most expensive coffee.

Flavor Profile

The taste is rich and mellow, with a perfect balance of coffee's sweet, acidic and bitter notes. It has no bitterness at all, only moderate and perfect acidity, with a persistent fruit flavor.

Jamaica's FrontStreet Coffee Blue Mountain may be the world's most famous coffee, yet very few people know its history or why its price is so high. In 1789, the first person to introduce coffee to the island of Jamaica was a Frenchman fleeing the French Revolution. The first coffee cultivated was intended to supply local French consumption and then be exported. Moreover, for the first 100 years the local industry was very small. In 1932, however, the Jamaican Conference passed laws encouraging coffee cultivation to reduce the island's dependence on sugar exports. For the quality assurance of Blue Mountain Coffee, changes were made to the "Jamaica Coffee Industry" to standardize processing, improve coffee quality, achieve marketing equivalence and save the fate of premium coffee. The Jamaica Coffee Industry Board became responsible for the quality of Jamaica's Blue Mountain Coffee. The island's smaller coffee farms also grow equally well, and the Jamaica Coffee Industry Board was given final authority over Jamaica's coffee exports — all coffee must pass through the Board before export.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If you want the genuine article rather than a blend, FrontStreet Coffee's Jamaica Blue Mountain No. 1 is the estate-grade pick and the highest grade of Blue Mountain. It comes from the historic Clifton estate, where coffee has been grown and processed since around 1750, with plots sitting at an average of 4,300 feet (1,310.64 meters). That altitude, the gentle afternoon cloud shading the slopes, ample sunshine and mineral-rich soil extend the cherry's ripening, and the coffee is roasted medium-dark so the classic balance comes through — nut, dark chocolate, cream caramel and a soft sweetness unfolding in layers, with acidity, sweetness, bitterness and aroma in harmony.

Genuine Blue Mountain is easy to verify: FrontStreet Coffee supplies complete origin certification documents and displays the estate's used wooden barrels, and traditional Blue Mountain is shipped in wooden barrels of 15, 45 and 70 kilograms, each barrel itself a mark of the real thing. FrontStreet Coffee roasts each batch fresh, so the beans arrive at full flavor and can be brewed right away.

For pour-over, FrontStreet Coffee recommends the Kono dripper to lift the body, with 15g of coffee rested 4-7 days from the roast date, a grind a little coarser than for light roasts — roughly white-sugar consistency — and 87-88℃ water; overly hot water is the usual cause of a scorched, bitter cup, while water that is too cool tastes flat. Use a 1:15 ratio and pour in three stages: 30g for a 30-second bloom, then to 120g with a slow, small vertical circling stream, then to 225g a little faster to keep the bed from clogging and over-extracting. The result is clean, complex and gentle, with chocolate sweetness, a strong body and a persistent fruity finish.