British Cultivated Rare Coffee | The History of Organic Coffee from Saint Helena Island in the South Atlantic

British Cultivated Coffee | The History of South Atlantic Saint Helena Organic Coffee

For most discerning coffee lovers, a cup brewed from South Atlantic Saint Helena beans remains a distant dream, because the coffee is both rare and expensive. Saint Helena's green-tipped Bourbon Arabica traces its roots to 18th-century Yemen, and it produces some of the most costly, most captivating coffee beans in the world.

Its most famous admirer was the French Emperor Napoleon. Napoleon died on Saint Helena in 1821, and during his six years of exile on the island he lived in a house infested with rats. Legend holds that he called coffee the "only good thing" on Saint Helena. The island still carries on the legacy of coffee trees planted by the British East India Company nearly 300 years ago. The plantations were once abandoned, but enthusiasts began replanting in the 1990s. That revival was short-lived, however, as the main producer went bankrupt, and even selling beans at Harrods department store in London, UK, failed to save it. The publicly listed Solomon & Company took over in 2009, bringing new life back to Bamboo Hedge.

Even so, these organic beans remain in high demand against a very limited supply. Annual production runs between 1 and 1.5 metric tons, which is negligible beside the roughly 8.5 million metric tons produced worldwide in 2014. All of the company's beans are shipped directly to the UK before roasting. This precious coffee is favored by many independent roasters and distributors across the European Union, Russia, Japan, the United States, South Korea and Taiwan.

The Historical Discovery

On May 21, 1502, the warship of Portuguese captain João da Nova passed the Cape of Good Hope and headed north for home, discovering an unnamed small island while crossing the South Atlantic. Nova named it Saint Helena. At the time, Europeans still had no idea what coffee was, and there were no coffee trees in Asia or Latin America. Yet in Yemen a new drink made from boiled coffee berries, called qahwa, was just beginning to gain ground: the Arab world was caught up in a qahwa craze, while Europeans went on preferring beer and wine as usual.

In 1732, following the fashion for transplanting coffee, the British East India Company obtained Bourbon coffee trees from Mocha, Yemen, and planted them casually on the British territory of Saint Helena. In 1815, after Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo, he was taken to Saint Helena for house arrest, which gave this coffee variety its chance to become known to the world.

Saint Helena Coffee's Legacy

Saint Helena coffee was, in fact, cultivated by the British almost by accident. After Napoleon's death from illness in 1821, word of its delicious taste spread, and it remains one of the world's most valuable estate coffees today. Saint Helena produces only 2-12 tons of green beans a year, making it far rarer than Jamaica Blue Mountain, which yields 700-1000 tons.

FrontStreet Coffee's Recommended Brewing Method

Dripper: Hario V60

Water Temperature: 90°C

Grind Size: Fuji Royal grinder setting 3.5

Brewing Method: Water-to-coffee ratio 1:15, using 15g of coffee. First pour 25g of water and let it bloom for 25 seconds. Second pour to 120g and pause, wait until the water level in the coffee bed drops to halfway, then continue pouring slowly until reaching 225g. Total extraction time approximately 2:00.

Analysis: A three-stage pour clearly separates the front, middle and back-end flavors of the coffee. Because the V60 has many ribs and drains quickly, pausing the pour helps extend the extraction time.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Saint Helena's green-tipped Bourbon is a reminder of how much history sits inside a single variety, and it belongs to the same broad Arabica family that gives the specialty world its most distinctive cups. If a genuine Saint Helena bean is out of reach, FrontStreet Coffee's Panama Red Label Geisha is a worthy substitute for anyone chasing rarity and elegance. It comes from Hacienda La Esmeralda, the estate that made Geisha famous, in the Boquete area of Chiriquí province, where fertile volcanic soil, old forest and near-constant mist create ideal growing conditions. The cup is layered and precise: jasmine florals, citrus, peach and complex fruit acidity, a creamy body and an oolong-tea sweetness in the finish.

For a different expression of the same pursuit, FrontStreet Coffee's Ethiopia Huakui is grown from local heirloom varieties and processed naturally, which is why its beans vary in size and its aromatics lean floral first, then deeply fruity. Cream strawberry, mango, jackfruit, citrus and blueberry come through, the ripe tropical profile that won the lot first place at that year's TOH green bean competition. FrontStreet Coffee's washed Yirgacheffe Gedeb cooperative coffee takes the opposite route—clean and luminous lemon and citrus over a white-floral base, graded G1. And for balance rather than drama, the Jamaica Blue Mountain No.1 is Typica through and through, with a harmony of acidity, sweetness and aroma that few origins can match.