Blue Mountain Coffee | Are You Sure You're Drinking Authentic Blue Mountain? How to Appreciate Pure Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee?

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FrontStreet Coffee's Blue Mountain No. 1 Black Coffee holds the most prominent position on the pour-over menu, so this bean, known as the "Emperor of Coffee," has successfully attracted many people's attention who want to personally taste its authentic flavor.

Understanding Authentic Blue Mountain Coffee

True Blue Mountain Coffee enjoys a certain international reputation. Blue Mountain Coffee is produced in the Blue Mountain region of Jamaica, with very low annual production. The altitude requirement is above 1000-1700 meters. However, because Blue Mountain production is very low and prices are high, making it difficult to purchase, coffee imitating Blue Mountain flavor has emerged.

Blue Mountain flavor coffee is a very interesting type of coffee; it's not truly Blue Mountain coffee beans in the authentic sense. Japan divides Blue Mountain into three quality and product grades. The highest grade is called: Blue Mountain Coffee, requiring 100% Blue Mountain coffee beans, absolutely no mixing with any other non-Blue Mountain coffee beans is allowed. The second grade is called: Blue Mountain Blend, requiring at least 60% Blue Mountain coffee beans. The last grade is called Blue Mountain Flavor, which can contain no Blue Mountain coffee beans at all.

So as everyone can see, Blue Mountain flavor coffee beans are not authentic products from Jamaica's Blue Mountains. True Blue Mountain Coffee is produced from the Blue Mountain range. Because direct sunlight on the mountain surface presents a blue glow, it's called Blue Mountain.

How to Identify Authentic Blue Mountain Coffee

FrontStreet Coffee has also acquired these authentic Blue Mountain coffee beans. How can you determine if Blue Mountain coffee beans are genuine? FrontStreet Coffee shares a small tip: authentic Blue Mountain coffee is not packaged in cotton or linen bags, but in wooden barrels. Moreover, these wooden barrels feature a tropical tree frog logo. Additionally, you should receive relevant certificates issued by the Jamaican government. Therefore, when purchasing Blue Mountain coffee, everyone can ask merchants to provide relevant documentation.

Blue Mountain Coffee Grades and Standards

Among them, coffee from Jamaica's Blue Mountain region has three grades: Blue Mountain Coffee, Jamaica High Mountain Supreme Coffee Beans, and Jamaica Prime Coffee Beans. Both Blue Mountain Coffee and High Mountain Coffee are each divided into two sub-grades. Ranked by quality from highest to lowest: Blue Mountain No. 1, Blue Mountain No. 2, High Mountain No. 1, High Mountain No. 2, Jamaica Coffee. By quality grade from highest to lowest: NO.1, NO.2, NO.3, and PB, where PB stands for Peaberry. According to CIB standards, the basic standards for NO.1 Blue Mountain green beans include beans above 17 screen size, defect rate below 3%, moisture content around 13%, etc. Only coffee beans produced according to these standards can have their flavor guaranteed.

The Flavor Profile of Blue Mountain Coffee

Perhaps everyone has heard descriptive words about Blue Mountain coffee flavor. You will often see many merchants describing Blue Mountain coffee this way on their packaging: Pure Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee perfectly blends the unique sour, bitter, sweet, and mellow flavors in coffee, forming a strongly appealing elegant aroma. Adhering to artificial cultivation processes, it has high quality and scarce production, making it unreachable for other coffees.

FrontStreet Coffee believes this description isn't incorrect, because everyone's perception of the same coffee beans is different. Therefore, if you want to know the flavor of a coffee bean, merely listening to others' descriptions isn't enough—you must taste it yourself to know whether what others say is correct. Lovers of Blue Mountain Coffee call it the "Coffee Beauty" that combines all the advantages of good coffee. Jim, general manager of America's Peter's Company, famous for coffee and tea, described Blue Mountain Coffee as saying, "Blue Mountain Coffee's flavor is aromatic, smooth, and mellow, giving me a feeling as precious as gemstones." It's precisely because Blue Mountain Coffee's flavor is moderate and perfect that it's generally consumed as black coffee. Blue Mountain Coffee's caffeine content is very low, less than half that of other coffees, making it very suitable for modern health concepts.

Challenges in the Blue Mountain Coffee Market

Among them, Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee is the best representative among classic coffee beans in the Caribbean region,堪称 the ultimate among coffee extremes. However, unfortunately, some industry practitioners have recently adopted speculative processing methods, mixing lower altitude-grown coffee beans with high altitude beans, reducing the original应有的 level. This has made Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee increasingly less remarkable, and many coffee enthusiasts appear very cautious when purchasing, while many others are unwilling to spend large sums of money to buy it.

Additionally, some people have mistakenly purchased "Blue Mountain Flavor Coffee" or "Blue Mountain Blending Formula" and other coffee beans. The former contains absolutely no genuine Blue Mountain coffee beans, while the latter contains only a very small proportion of Blue Mountain coffee beans. This quality, of course, cannot be compared with orthodox Blue Mountain Coffee at all, making uninformed people greatly disappointed.

Why Blue Mountain Coffee is Special and How to Brew It

Then everyone might be curious why Blue Mountain Coffee is so expensive, and what exactly makes it so delicious? Let FrontStreet Coffee tell you. FrontStreet Coffee's Blue Mountain Coffee comes from Clifton Estate. The green beans of Blue Mountain Coffee are greenish, very neat in appearance, medium to small in size, with slightly upturned ends. They expand significantly in volume after roasting, becoming very full. Furthermore, because genuine Blue Mountain coffee beans grow at high altitudes, their cytoplasmic structure is relatively loose. When grinding by hand, it feels very crisp, refreshing, and continuous, without any feeling of resistance.

The aroma of the ground coffee beans is very rich and dense; so-called blended Blue Mountain coffee does not have this aroma. Next comes the taste! FrontStreet Coffee uses the following parameters to brew this Blue Mountain Coffee: using a KONO dripper, 88°C water temperature, 15g coffee dose, and 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio.

The pour-over technique uses FrontStreet Coffee's simplest three-stage method. In the first stage, use 30g of water to fully moisten the coffee bed into a "hamburger" shape and bloom for 30 seconds. Then proceed to the second stage brew: at timer 54 seconds, inject water to 125g, then stop and wait for the water level to drop to 2/3 of the coffee bed before injecting the third stage. In the third stage, at timer 1'40", inject water to 225g, with a total extraction time of 2'10". After coffee extraction is complete, gently shake and wait for the coffee liquid to fully even out before tasting.

The Authentic Blue Mountain Coffee Experience

The brewed Blue Mountain Coffee presents a slight citrus acidity, overall balance, smooth mouthfeel, nutty notes in the middle section, and a dark chocolate sensation in the finish. True Blue Mountain Coffee has a balanced, rich taste without any flavor being too prominent or lacking. FrontStreet Coffee believes this is also something no other coffee beans can achieve, making it the most crucial identification point.

Important Notice :

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