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How much does authentic Blue Mountain coffee cost? How much is a cup of Blue Mountain coffee? Where to buy authentic Blue Mountain coffee?

Published: 2026-01-27 Author: FrontStreet Coffee

Last Updated: 2026/01/27, In the early days, there were no legitimate import channels in China. The already scarce Blue Mountain coffee was even rarer domestically. Being able to drink a cup of Blue Mountain coffee was considered a status symbol that exceeded all limits. As a result, claims like "all Blue Mountain coffee in domestic cafés is fake" and "Blue Mountain coffee cannot be purchased in China" have even persisted to this day.

Purchasing and Authenticating Blue Mountain Coffee

In earlier years, when there were no legitimate import channels in China, the already scarce Blue Mountain coffee was even rarer domestically. Being able to drink a cup of Blue Mountain coffee became a status symbol of exceptional prestige, leading to sayings like "all Blue Mountain coffee in domestic cafes is fake" and "you can't buy Blue Mountain coffee in China," which still circulate today. However, even in the era without legitimate channels, Blue Mountain coffee consumed in the Chinese market still accounted for 15% of the world's total consumption. When Jamaicans learned this, they were so shocked their jaws nearly dropped (probably upon learning the selling price of Blue Mountain coffee in the Chinese market), so they began to重视 the Chinese market. Now, buying Blue Mountain coffee in China is no longer difficult, and channels are not limited to just one—various private channels or raw and roasted beans imported through third countries are all available.

To authenticate Blue Mountain coffee, retail packaged products can generally be identified by the CIB certification logo and the Jamaica Blue Mountain trademark. UCC's Blue Mountain coffee is reliable even without the logo. For products with certification logos and trademarks, you can check the CIB website to see if the company has CIB authorization. For bulk batches, you can check the certificate of origin, as bulk coffee is typically sold by breaking down from 70kg wooden barrels, each of which comes with a certificate of origin.

About CIB and CIB Certification

The Coffee Industry Board of Jamaica is the Jamaican government agency responsible for coffee affairs, overseeing, regulating, and guiding Jamaica's coffee cultivation, processing, and trade. It also owns the famous Wallenford estate and the trademark rights to Jamaica Blue Mountain.

Like champagne, being called Blue Mountain coffee itself represents production from a legally designated region—the area above 2,200 feet (about 671 meters) in the Blue Mountains. Coffee produced in this legally designated region is eligible to display the round Blue Mountain coffee logo on its packaging (as shown below). If packaged in wooden barrels (including the 70kg wooden barrels mentioned above), it generally comes with a certificate of origin. Coffee grown below 2,200 feet in the Blue Mountains is not allowed to use the logo below or the Jamaica Blue Mountain trademark. So, when buying Blue Mountain, look for this circle (reminder again, UCC's Blue Mountain is an exception)!

Blue Mountain Coffee Certification Logo

Attached is the list of authorized exporters from the CIB website:

What Blue Mountain coffee is worth buying? Country Traders Limited (the company selling Blue Mountain for 89 yuan), UCC, Wallenford, and Golden Cup can all be found above, along with detailed authorization scopes.

Blue Mountain Coffee Grading

Blue Mountain coffee is graded from high to low as follows:

Blue Mountain No.1 (Blue Mountain No.1) is the highest grade of Blue Mountain coffee, screened with S-17/18 mesh size, with less than 2% defective beans.

Blue Mountain No.2 (Blue Mountain No.2) is screened with S-16/17 mesh size, with beans slightly smaller than Blue Mountain No.1, and less than 2% defective beans.

Blue Mountain No.3 (Blue Mountain No.3) is screened with S-15/16 mesh size, with beans smaller than No.2, and less than 2% defective beans.

Blue Mountain Peaberry (or Blue Mountain P.B), with over 96% round male beans and less than 2% defective beans, actually belongs to specially selected beans. Many people believe this grade of beans is actually above No.1, while others think it's between No.1 and No.2.

Blue Mountain Triage (also translated as Blue Mountain Blend) is a mix of the above four grades, with less than 4% defective beans, essentially unscreened beans.

As for beans produced outside the Jamaica Blue Mountain legally designated region, they fall into the following three categories:

High Mountain, screened with S-17/18 mesh size, with less than 2% defective beans.

Jamaica Prime, screened with S-16/18 mesh size, with less than 2% defective beans.

Jamaica Select, screened with S-15/18 mesh size, with less than 4% defective beans.

PS: Regarding mesh screens, a No. 17 mesh screen means the screen hole size is 17/64 inches, or 6.75mm (put down your ruler and roasted beans—this refers to raw bean size, as bean size increases after roasting). Higher-numbered mesh screens produce larger beans with more rich and complex flavors.

The Story of Blue Mountain Quotas

In 1969, Jamaica suffered severe hurricane damage, with plantations suffering heavy losses. Japan's UCC company provided substantial assistance that revived Jamaica's coffee industry. As repayment, Jamaica signed an agreement with Japan in 1972, allocating 90% of Blue Mountain coffee quotas to Japan, with Europe and America each receiving 5%. Thus, the saying that Japanese people buy up most of Blue Mountain coffee persists to this day. However, even though Japanese people bought it, would they be foolish enough to keep it all for themselves? Since they monopolized the market, the prices for selling it to other places would be extremely good! The reason UCC doesn't put the CIB certification logo on its packaging mentioned earlier also stems from this—the entire market is almost entirely UCC's, so it's completely unnecessary! Does my great UCC's Blue Mountain need your CIB certification?!

Blue Mountain Varieties

The Blue Mountain coffee sourced by FrontStreet Coffee belongs to the ancient Typica variety, with an oval shape. From the side, the beans appear flat and thin. Even when cultivated at different altitudes, the thickness difference on the side of raw beans won't vary significantly. The Typica variety was first brought by Yemenis from Ethiopia to Malabar, India, then by Dutch to Indonesia, and subsequently from the West Indies to the French colony of Martinique.

Subsequently growing in other cultivation areas, it derived numerous variant species: Criollo (South America), Arabigo (Central America), Kona (Hawaii), Pluma Hidalgo (Mexico), Garundang (Sumatra), Blue Mountain (Jamaica, Papua New Guinea), San Bernado & San Ramon (Brazil), Kents & Chickumalgu (India).

Brewing a Cup of FrontStreet Coffee's Blue Mountain Coffee

To brew classic good flavors, FrontStreet Coffee's Blue Mountain coffee brewing requires attention to certain details and techniques. A moment of carelessness can turn the coffee flavor from delicious to herbal medicine... ultimately wasting precious Blue Mountain coffee. Today, FrontStreet Coffee will first brew a pot of Blue Mountain pour-over coffee using a drip cone, then extract a cup of Blue Mountain Americano with a moka pot, to see what flavor characteristics each method produces.

Hand-Pour Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee Method

To highlight the rich and mellow texture of FrontStreet Coffee's Blue Mountain No.1 coffee, we'll use a KONO coffee filter cone for extraction. The KONO's ribs are less than half the height of the filter cone—this design is actually meant to ensure the filter paper sticks closely to the filter wall after wetting, restricting airflow. This increases the water absorption time of coffee particles, resulting in more uniform overall extraction. (The KONO filter cone is shown on the right side below)

FrontStreet Coffee's Blue Mountain pour-over parameters: 15g of coffee grounds, coffee-to-water ratio 1:15, grind size: EK43s setting 10.5 (75% pass-through rate with China No.20 standard sieve), water temperature: 87-88°C, brewing method: segmented extraction.

FrontStreet Coffee places the filter paper in the KONO filter cone, pours water to wet the filter paper and make it fit better, remembering to discard the water used to rinse the filter paper from the lower pot. Pour the ground coffee into the filter, gently tap to distribute the grounds evenly. For the first segment, gently pour 30g of water for blooming, with a blooming time of 30 seconds. For the second segment, pour to about 125g of water, circling evenly and steadily outward. Then wait for the coffee liquid to drop, and when it reaches halfway, pour the final segment to 225g. After waiting for all the coffee to drip through, the total extraction time is generally around 2 minutes.

The hand-poured Blue Mountain No.1 coffee shows dark chocolate and nuts, very rich with obvious almond aftertaste. As the temperature decreases, roasted hazelnuts become creamy, sweet, and silky smooth, with a hint of gentle acidity and caramel sweetness. The aroma persists in the mouth without dispersing.

Moka Pot Blue Mountain Coffee Method

Before extracting coffee, you need to prepare a package of FrontStreet Coffee's Blue Mountain No.1 coffee beans at their optimal tasting period, weigh out 20g of grounds, and grind them to the consistency of fine sugar. You'll also need a gas stove or induction cooker for heating, a grinder for grinding coffee beans, and water.

1. Add hot water to the lower chamber, keeping the water level 0.5cm below the pressure relief valve (safety valve). Using cold water would increase the soaking time of the coffee grounds, causing over-extraction and bitterness. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee recommends using hot water, which also shortens the extraction time.

2. The coffee grounds need to be finer than pour-over coffee but coarser than espresso coffee. You can reference the filter screen gap size in the filter basket to ensure coffee particles don't pass through. Pour the coffee grounds gently into the filter basket, using your finger to spread and level them evenly.

3. Place the filter basket back into the lower chamber and tighten the upper chamber. Place it on an electric ceramic stove to begin heating, waiting for the moka pot to heat up.

4. When you hear a hissing sound from inside the moka pot, turn the stove to low heat and open the lid of the upper chamber. At this point, you can see coffee liquid and crema slowly flowing out.

5. When the upper chamber is half full of coffee liquid, you can turn off the heat source and move the pot to the table, using the residual heat and pressure inside to continue extracting the remaining coffee liquid. Note that the moka pot uses metal components, so avoid touching the pot body during high-temperature heating to prevent burns.

6. Finally, prepare a 250ml coffee cup and 200g of warm water, pour all the Blue Mountain coffee liquid extracted by the moka pot into it. You can see beautiful golden crema floating on the surface, and a cup of moka pot Blue Mountain Americano is ready.

The finished moka pot Blue Mountain Americano can be stirred gently with a spoon before tasting. When FrontStreet Coffee drinks it hot, we can feel rich roasted aroma with characteristics of toasted nuts, caramel, and dark chocolate. Accompanied by the upper foam, the buttery aroma gradually becomes noticeable. After swallowing, there's a pleasant aftertaste—very satisfying.