Jamaican Premium Coffee Beans - Introduction to Blue Mountain Coffee's Flavor Profile and Quality Grade

Blue Mountain Coffee: The Legendary Jamaican Gem

Blue Mountain coffee is arguably one of the most renowned specialty coffees in the coffee world. Not only has it been repeatedly praised by many coffee connoisseurs, but even elders who don't drink coffee have heard of its famous name. Among guests who visit FrontStreet Coffee's Dongshankou store to drink Blue Mountain coffee, the most frequently asked question to FrontStreet Coffee's barista is: "Is your Blue Mountain coffee authentic?"

Is There Real Blue Mountain Coffee in China?

If we enter the keyword "Blue Mountain" in search engines, numerous articles about how to identify authentic Blue Mountain coffee will appear. Indeed, due to Blue Mountain coffee's international fame, many unscrupulous merchants use the Blue Mountain banner to pass off lower-quality commercial coffee as genuine, resulting in a large number of fake Blue Mountain products on the market. The most common ones will include terms like "Blue Mountain flavor," "Blue Mountain blend," "Blue Mountain instant," which actually have no relation to real Blue Mountain coffee.

Although there are many fake Blue Mountain coffees in China, it doesn't mean that real Blue Mountain doesn't exist. In fact, China has records of directly importing Blue Mountain coffee from Jamaica as early as April 2011. At that time, Zhejiang DUNN'S RIVER Import and Export Trading Company, representing the "Hangzhou Coffee and Western Restaurant Association," purchased from Jamaica a total of 1000*70kg, with a total value of two million US dollars. Today, Jamaica also attaches great importance to the Chinese market, and many authorized domestic exporters can be found on the CIB official website.

FrontStreet Coffee's house-roasted Blue Mountain No. 1 coffee is produced by Jamaica's Clifton Mountain Estate, equipped with quality certification certificates issued by the Jamaica Coffee Industry Board, authorized sales certificates issued by Blue Mountain coffee manufacturers, and Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee origin certificates. The Dongshankou store also displays oak barrels containing Blue Mountain green beans.

Why Is Real Blue Mountain So Expensive?

Blue Mountain coffee was once hailed as the Hermes of the coffee world. Authentic Blue Mountain allows people to taste rich, dense, and lasting chocolate and roasted hazelnut aromas, while having an excellent balance of acidity, sweetness, bitterness, aroma, and mellow taste. FrontStreet Coffee believes that Blue Mountain coffee's high reputation is inseparable from the careful management and strict grading by Jamaican growers.

Blue Mountain has unique natural conditions, and the combination of various factors makes it a perfect space for growing coffee. However, as an agricultural product, variety, altitude, harvesting, and processing methods all affect the final aroma.

The coffee planted in the forest areas officially designated by the Jamaica Coffee Industry Board (CIB) - only Typica variety coffee grown at altitudes of approximately 910-1700 meters can be called "Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee" in the true sense. Typica needs to be grown in high-altitude environments for its flavor characteristics to be more prominent. Coupled with the Typica variety's poor disease resistance, making it very susceptible to disease, and the low fruit yield per plant, it requires more manpower for careful cultivation. Additionally, the high-altitude areas of Blue Mountain have uneven terrain, making management and harvesting very difficult, thus requiring high skill levels from harvesting personnel, further affecting production. In recent years, less than 15% of coffee beans produced in Jamaica can carry the Blue Mountain coffee label, about 900 tons.

I believe many friends should have heard such a rumor: "Authentic Blue Mountain coffee has been monopolized by Japan." This statement is not without foundation. UCC is a Japanese coffee company, formerly known as Ueshima Coffee Co., Ltd., which opened a farm in Jamaica in 1981 to operate the Blue Mountain coffee project. Jamaica promised to sell 90% of its Blue Mountain coffee quota to Japan. Coupled with Japan's vigorous promotion of Blue Mountain, the phenomenon of high prices and scarcity of Blue Mountain emerged. Today, with the flourishing development of coffee culture, drinking a cup of Blue Mountain coffee is no longer a difficult matter. At FrontStreet Coffee, 60 yuan gets you a cup of Blue Mountain No. 1 hand-dripped black coffee.

Why Is It Called "Blue Mountain No. 1"?

Compared to other coffee producing regions, Jamaica was the earliest country to realize that coffee has "regional flavor." Local standards for evaluating Blue Mountain green bean quality cover multiple categories: green bean specifications, defect rate, color, uniformity, and cupping performance after roasting (including dry aroma, wet aroma, acidity, flavor, body, cleanliness, etc.).

Bean specifications are determined using various screens with different hole diameters. Coffee beans that do not pass through the holes meet the standard used. Color evaluation includes visual observation and colorimeter readings, with blue-green being the highest grade. Combining the above standards, Blue Mountain coffee is divided into 4 grades, from highest to lowest: NO.1, NO.2, NO.3, PB, and blends. NO.1 is the highest grade top Blue Mountain bean, known domestically as "Blue Mountain No. 1." Blue Mountain No. 1 must meet specifications above 17 mesh, defect rate below 3%, moisture content around 13%, and present rich coffee aroma in cupping, with smooth, balanced taste, low acidity, and lasting aftertaste.

For roasting, CIB also has recommendations for roasting degrees to bring out Blue Mountain's classic flavors. FrontStreet Coffee's roasters also follow this, using medium roasting to allow Blue Mountain No. 1 coffee to present rich chocolate sweetness while retaining appropriate soft fruit acidity.

Brewing Recommendations for Blue Mountain No. 1 Coffee

FrontStreet Coffee wants to highlight the rich and mellow taste of Blue Mountain No. 1 coffee, so they use a KONO coffee filter for extraction. The KONO's ribs are less than half the height of the filter. This design is actually to ensure that after wetting, the filter closely adheres to the filter wall, limiting airflow. This increases the water absorption time of coffee powder particles, resulting in more uniform overall extraction.

Brewing parameters: 15g powder, water ratio 1:15, grind size: EK43s setting 10.5 (75% pass rate on China No. 20 standard sieve), water temperature: 87-88°C, brewing method: segmented extraction.

Place the filter paper in the KONO filter, inject water to wet the filter paper while making them fit better. Pour in the coffee powder, tap gently to distribute the powder layer evenly. For the first stage, gently inject 30g of water for blooming, with a blooming time of 30 seconds. For the second stage, inject to about 125g of water, circling evenly and steadily outward. Then wait for the coffee liquid to drop, and when it drops to half, inject the final stage of water to 225g. Wait for all the coffee to drip through, with a total extraction time of about 2 minutes.

The hand-dripped Blue Mountain No. 1 coffee has dark chocolate and nutty notes, very rich and mellow, with obvious almond aftertaste. As the temperature drops, roasted hazelnut, creamy sweetness and silkiness emerge, carrying a hint of soft acidity and caramel sweetness, with the aroma lingering in the mouth.

For professional coffee knowledge exchange and more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat official account cafe_style).

For more specialty coffee beans, please add FrontStreet Coffee's private WeChat (WeChat ID: qjcoffeex).

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473