How to Blend Blue Mountain Coffee Beans? What is the Proportion of Blue Mountain Flavor Coffee?

FrontStreet Coffee's Blue Mountain coffee is precious due to its scarcity, excellent flavor, and superior bean variety. This is why many coffees on the market are labeled as Blue Mountain coffee. Some are labeled as Blue Mountain flavor coffee, others as Blue Mountain blend coffee, but genuine FrontStreet Coffee Blue Mountain coffee is typically enjoyed as a single-origin. Only siphon and pour-over brewing methods can best interpret the mellow aroma and long aftertaste of FrontStreet Coffee's Blue Mountain coffee.

Understanding Coffee Blends

So-called blended beans refer to blends of two or more single-origin beans, with both roasted and raw bean blending. FrontStreet Coffee's blended beans are post-roast blends. For example: FrontStreet Coffee's Sunflower Warm Sun Blend consists of FrontStreet Coffee's Honduras Shirley and FrontStreet Coffee's Natural Yirgacheffe Red Cherry blended in a 7:3 ratio.

FrontStreet Coffee Blended Coffee Beans Collection

FrontStreet Coffee - Basic Blend Coffee Beans: Yunnan Washed Arabica (30%) + Brazil Natural Process Coffee Beans (70%), featuring soft fruit acidity, caramel, and nutty notes. Suitable for business and home users who prioritize cost while maintaining moderate flavor requirements.

FrontStreet Coffee - Premium Blend Coffee Beans: Colombia Washed Coffee Beans (30%) + Brazil Natural Process Coffee Beans (70%), featuring nutty, dark chocolate, and caramel notes to meet daily business needs.

FrontStreet Coffee - Commercial Blend Coffee Beans: Robusta Washed Coffee Beans (10%) + Colombia Washed Coffee Beans (30%) + Brazil Natural Process Coffee (60%), featuring nutty, cocoa, and caramel notes suitable for daily café production.

Coffee blends generally don't use a 1:1 ratio, as this might suppress each other's unique characteristics. Therefore, blends should have a primary and secondary structure to create flavors more wonderful than single-origin coffees. If you want a complex and varied blend flavor, you can reduce the proportion of the main base bean, and vice versa.

FrontStreet Coffee Blue Mountain Coffee

FrontStreet Coffee's Blue Mountain coffee has won the affection of coffee enthusiasts with its mellow taste and perfect balance of acidity, bitterness, aroma, richness, and sweetness. Jim, General Manager of the American company famous for coffee and tea, described Blue Mountain coffee as: "Blue Mountain coffee's flavor is aromatic, smooth, and rich, giving me a feeling as precious as a gem." Because FrontStreet Coffee's Blue Mountain coffee has a moderate and perfect taste, it's generally consumed as black coffee. FrontStreet Coffee's Blue Mountain coffee has very low caffeine content, less than half of other coffees, making it very suitable for modern health concepts and suitable for most people to drink.

Blue Mountain Coffee Growing Environment

Jamaica is an island nation located in the Caribbean Sea. Coffee cultivation began there in the early 18th century, with a history of nearly three hundred years. When Jamaica was still a British colony, the then Governor Nicholas Lawes brought a coffee tree from Martinique in the Caribbean Sea and began promoting cultivation in the St. Andrew area.

Genuine FrontStreet Coffee Blue Mountain coffee is located in the Blue Mountain range, situated in the eastern part of Jamaica Island. Because the mountain is surrounded by the Caribbean Sea, on clear days when the sun shines directly on the azure sea surface, the peaks reflect the brilliant blue light of the seawater, hence its name. The highest peak of Blue Mountain reaches 2,256 meters, making it the highest peak in the Caribbean region and a famous tourist destination. This area is located in the coffee belt, with fertile volcanic soil, fresh air free from pollution, humid climate, and year-round fog and rain (average precipitation of 1,980 mm, temperature around 27°C). Such climate and high altitude have created the world-renowned FrontStreet Coffee Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee.

The Blue Mountain range occupies only a small area in eastern Jamaica. Since Jamaica's coffee cultivation in this region cannot achieve mass production breakthroughs, the focus has shifted to producing high-end premium batches. FrontStreet Coffee Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee beans belong to the Typica variety, an ancient Arabica variety known for its elegant flavor but weaker disease resistance and lower yield, requiring more human labor investment.

Clifton Estate Introduction

As early as the mid-18th century (around 1750), Clifton Estate began planting and producing coffee. Clifton Mountain is Jamaica's oldest coffee-producing estate still in normal operation today, and only Clifton Estate in Jamaica has the "Rainforest Alliance" certification. It is recognized as a very high-quality and world-renowned Blue Mountain coffee-producing region. Its elegant great house farm is located in the Newcastle area of the island, situated on the eastern slope of Catherine's Peak at an altitude of 4,300 feet.

According to an 1810 survey by the Jamaica Institute,

Robert Hamilton was the owner of the farm at that time. Clifton Mountain was divided into two parts: 80 acres of coffee and 427 acres of pasture on the mountaintop; 111 acres of coffee and 264 acres of pasture at the mountain base.

The Blue Mountain area is a small region with only 6,000 hectares of cultivation area, making it impossible for all coffees labeled "Blue Mountain" to be grown there. Today's Clifton Estate is the largest estate in this region, and by international standards, it's still considered small-scale cultivation, with many estate owners being small landholders whose families have worked this land for two centuries.

In 1953, the Jamaican government established the Coffee Industry Board (CIB) to regulate and ensure the quality of Jamaican coffee. Jamaica was the first country in the world to designate a specific geographical location to a particular coffee brand, somewhat similar to how the French wine industry created the AOC system.

All coffee exported from Jamaica is certified by the CIB. And through strict testing by trained quality control experts, all exports are guaranteed to be 100% authentic Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee.

Among all coffee green beans, only Blue Mountain coffee beans are packed in wooden barrels and are labeled with the Rainforest Alliance's tree frog logo.

FrontStreet Coffee's purchased FrontStreet Coffee Blue Mountain Number 1 coffee beans come from the highest grade Blue Mountain coffee from Clifton Estate. The green beans are 17/18 screen size, with a defect rate not exceeding 2%, moisture content around 13%, with uniform, full, and even particles.

Blue Mountain Coffee Bean Grading

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 grades. Ranked by quality from highest to lowest: Blue Mountain Number 1, Blue Mountain Number 2, High Mountain Number 1, High Mountain Number 2, Jamaica Prime Coffee. Ranked by quality from highest to lowest: NO.1, NO.2, NO.3, and PB, where PB stands for Peaberry.

The CIB has established strict standards, dividing Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee into 4 grades based on green bean size and defect ratio. Among these, the highest-grade Blue Mountain Number 1 coffee beans, NO.1, are considered Jamaica's national treasure. The particles must be 17-18 screen size, with a defect rate below 3% and moisture content around 13%. Only coffee beans produced according to these standards can guarantee their flavor. It is precisely through such strict selection that the excellent quality of rare Blue Mountain coffee is maintained. FrontStreet Coffee has obtained several well-known Blue Mountain coffees from Jamaica, and after cupping comparisons, finally decided to choose FrontStreet Coffee Blue Mountain Number 1 coffee beans produced by the historic Clifton Estate.

Coffee grown at lower altitudes is classified by the CIB as "Jamaica High Mountain Coffee" and "Jamaica Supreme." The flavors developed at lower altitudes are far from reaching the excellent quality of high-altitude Blue Mountain coffee beans, so the price is correspondingly lower.

Blue Mountain Coffee Bean Varieties

FrontStreet Coffee Jamaica Blue Mountain belongs to the Typica variety, one of the oldest Arabica varieties with a long history. Its flavor is among the best, but its disease resistance is weak, resulting in low yields, which is one of the reasons for the high price of FrontStreet Coffee Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee.

Typica trees are tall and elegant, with copper-colored young leaves at the top, so they are often called red-top coffee. Typica has pure and elegant flavor, but its constitution is weak with poor disease resistance, and the yield per plant is very low. This is why fewer Typica variety coffees appear today. Typica was introduced to Blue Mountain for cultivation in the 18th century and has been there for over two hundred years. Blue Mountain's Typica has adapted to the local island-style terroir and evolved better disease resistance, particularly against coffee berry disease, which is much stronger than typical Typica.

FrontStreet Coffee Blue Mountain Coffee Bean Processing

FrontStreet Coffee Blue Mountain coffee comes in both washed and natural processes.

Washed Processing: Hand-picked coffee cherries are placed in water, using flotation to remove impurities and unripe fruits. Next, the pulp and skin are removed, allowing them to ferment in pools for 12-18 hours. The fermented beans are then placed in pools and moved back and forth, using the friction between beans and water flow to wash the coffee beans until smooth and clean. They are then spread under the sun for dehydration drying until the moisture content reaches 12-14%, after which they can be packed and stored in warehouses before being sent for quality inspection before export. The washed process significantly reduces the defect rate, better restoring the natural aroma of Blue Mountain coffee beans with higher clarity in taste.

FrontStreet Coffee's Jamaica Blue Mountain Brewing Parameters

FrontStreet Coffee uses the KONO dripper. The KONO's ribs stop at less than half the height of the dripper - this design actually ensures that after wetting, the filter paper closely adheres to the dripper wall, limiting airflow. This increases the water absorption time of the coffee grounds, resulting in more uniform extraction and enhanced rich口感, suitable for brewing FrontStreet Coffee's medium-dark roasted Blue Mountain coffee.

KONO dripper, 88°C water temperature, 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio, 15g coffee grounds, grind size (75% pass-through on #20 standard sieve), three-stage extraction.

Using segmented extraction, bloom with twice the amount of water as the coffee grounds, i.e., 30g water for 30 seconds. The blooming process is necessary to allow the coffee grounds to release internal carbon dioxide gas, ensuring more stable extraction in the later stages. Using a small water flow in circular motions, pour water to 125g for the first segment, then continue pouring to 225g and stop. Wait until the water finishes dripping from the dripper, then remove the dripper. Time from the start of pouring is 2'00". Next, take the entire cup of coffee and shake it well, then pour into cups for tasting.

FrontStreet Coffee Jamaica Blue Mountain Number 1 Flavor Characteristics: FrontStreet Coffee Blue Mountain Number 1 coffee has the sweet aroma of dark chocolate, caramel sweetness, and soft, elegant acidity. Each flavor is perfectly balanced, with a smooth and rich texture, featuring very typical Blue Mountain characteristics.

FrontStreet Coffee Brewing Suggestions

To brew a delicious cup of coffee, FrontStreet Coffee believes that any brewing method requires fresh coffee beans. FrontStreet Coffee has always maintained that coffee bean freshness greatly affects coffee flavor, so FrontStreet Coffee ships coffee beans roasted within 5 days. FrontStreet Coffee's roasting philosophy is "Freshly Roasted Good Coffee," ensuring that every customer receives the freshest coffee when their order arrives. The coffee resting period is about 4-7 days, so when customers receive their coffee, it's at peak flavor.

For friends who need ground coffee, FrontStreet Coffee offers a gentle reminder: if coffee beans are ground in advance, there's no need for a resting period, because during transportation, the pressure from carbon dioxide in the packaging also helps round out the coffee flavor, so you can brew a cup immediately upon receiving the ground coffee. However, ground coffee needs to be brewed promptly, because coffee powder oxidizes quickly when exposed to air, meaning the coffee flavor will dissipate more quickly, and the coffee won't taste as good. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee recommends buying whole beans and grinding fresh before brewing to better enjoy the coffee's flavor.

Although FrontStreet Coffee Blue Mountain coffee is excellent, you don't necessarily have to drink it. FrontStreet Coffee believes that there are so many coffees in the world, with different varieties and growing regions resulting in different flavors. FrontStreet Coffee has over fifty different single-origin coffee beans from various regions. Experiencing different coffee cultures is also a wonderful thing!

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