What Grade and Variety is Authentic Blue Mountain Coffee? Introduction to Taste and Origin - Which Country's Brand is Blue Mountain Coffee?

Introduction to Blue Mountain Coffee

Blue Mountain Coffee has become one of the world's finest coffee representatives with its clean and elegant taste, as well as its lasting unique charm. What contributes to the exquisite flavor of Blue Mountain Coffee? Please follow FrontStreet Coffee to learn about this world-renowned coffee.

Premium Blue Mountain Coffee Comes from Jamaica

As the name suggests, Blue Mountain Coffee is produced in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica, but not all coffee trees growing in the entire Blue Mountain region can produce excellent quality Blue Mountain coffee beans. The Jamaica Coffee Industry Board (CIB) has established strict production standards—only Arabica coffee grown at elevations between 910-1700 meters can be called Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee, while coffee from remaining lower altitude areas is classified as Jamaica High Mountain Coffee and Jamaica Prime Coffee. Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee has four major producing regions: St. Mary, St. Thomas, St. Andrew, and Portland.

The Ideal Growing Environment

Surrounded by Caribbean Sea waters, Blue Mountain has an island tropical rainforest climate. During the rainy season, rainfall is concentrated with good drainage, and volcanic ash from active volcanoes enriches the soil with nutrients, so coffee trees require minimal irrigation and fertilization. The misty, cool, and comfortable high-altitude growing areas are very suitable for various crops, and locals typically plant coffee trees alongside banana trees on the slopes of Blue Mountain.

What Variety Does Blue Mountain Belong To?

The variety of Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee is the ancient Typica variety, renowned for its elegant and pure flavor. Those who understand coffee varieties certainly know that Typica has the longest history, and all Arabica varieties we see today are descendants derived from Typica and Bourbon.

The reason Typica is no longer widely cultivated is due to its weak constitution, poor disease resistance, and very low yield per plant. 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 also adapted to the local island-style terroir, evolving better disease resistance, particularly against coffee berry disease, which is much stronger than typical Typica. FrontStreet Coffee believes that the exquisite clean flavor of Blue Mountain is inseparable from Jamaica's commitment to careful cultivation of the Typica variety.

Premium Blue Mountain Coffee Beans Use Traditional Washed Processing

The clean flavor of Blue Mountain Coffee is maintained thanks to the local adherence to traditional washed processing. During the green coffee bean processing, multiple steps eliminate substandard coffee cherries, greatly reducing the overall defect rate.

After coffee cherries are harvested, machines are used to crush the coffee cherries, removing the skin and pulp, then they are placed in pools to ferment overnight. The fermented beans are then placed in clean water pools and washed back and forth, using the friction of the beans and the power of flowing water to wash the coffee beans until smooth and clean. Finally, the parchment beans are dried in the sun for 2-3 weeks until moisture content reaches 12-14%. Since the coffee pulp and mucilage have been removed before drying, without excessive fermented acidity affecting them, the inherent aroma of Blue Mountain beans becomes more balanced and clean.

Although with the diversification of the coffee market, Blue Mountain Coffee has tried to launch small batches of natural processed coffee beans, washed Blue Mountain flavor remains the most classic representative.

The Exquisite Flavor of Blue Mountain No. 1 Coffee

What made Blue Mountain flavor famous worldwide is Jamaica's national treasure-grade coffee bean—Jamaica Blue Mountain No. 1 coffee beans, with full and solid aroma, perfect fusion of acidity, sweetness, bitterness, and richness, with a smooth, fragrant, and mellow mouthfeel.

In the 1950s, the CIB was officially established by the Jamaican government and formulated detailed coffee export grading standards, with strict requirements for exported green beans regarding size, color, defects, and flavor characteristics. Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee beans must meet specifications of 17 screen or larger, with defective bean ratios not exceeding 2%, moisture content around 10-12.5%, and possess just the right balance of acidity, sweetness, bitterness, body, and aroma. As one can imagine, such exquisite-flavored premium coffee beans are extremely rare. FrontStreet Coffee's daily bean selection often reserves this Blue Mountain No. 1 coffee bean for fans of classic Blue Mountain flavor. FrontStreet Coffee's Blue Mountain No. 1 coffee comes from Jamaica's historic Clifton Mount Estate.

Clifton Mount Estate is one of the Rainforest Alliance certified estates. The entire coffee production process adheres to sustainable environmental protection concepts, minimizing various types of pollution, and the water used in the processing plant is also recycled. When FrontStreet Coffee receives Blue Mountain green coffee beans, the wooden barrels outside are printed with the green rainforest tree frog logo. When everyone comes to drink coffee at FrontStreet Coffee's store, you can notice this unique Blue Mountain wooden barrel with a little attention.

Brewing the Perfect Blue Mountain Coffee

FrontStreet Coffee hopes every guest can taste the complete optimal flavor period of the coffee, therefore FrontStreet Coffee will ensure coffee beans are freshly roasted within 5 days of shipping, so when everyone receives them, they can enjoy coffee beans rich in aroma.

To present the classic Blue Mountain flavor, FrontStreet Coffee uses medium-dark roast to highlight the chocolate sweetness in the coffee while retaining some elegant acidity. For brewing, FrontStreet Coffee's barista will choose the Kono dripper that emphasizes mellow mouthfeel for extraction. The Kono's ribs don't reach even halfway up the dripper height—this design is actually to ensure the filter fits tightly against the dripper wall after wetting, limiting airflow, which increases the water absorption time of coffee particles, resulting in more evenly extracted coffee that enhances the mellow mouthfeel.

Additionally, considering that Blue Mountain No. 1 coffee is medium roasted, the internal structure of the beans will be fluffier than light-roasted coffee, thus having better water absorption. To avoid over-extraction, FrontStreet Coffee chooses a coarseness of 75% pass-through through a #20 standard sieve, along with 88°C water temperature, paired with FrontStreet Coffee's customary three-stage pouring.

Brewing Parameters

Coffee grounds: 15 grams | Coffee-to-water ratio: 1:15

FrontStreet Coffee uses segmented extraction, namely the three-stage pouring method, using 30g of water for blooming, with a blooming time of 30s. The first stage uses a small water flow in circular motion to pour to 125g, then stops. When the liquid level drops to just about to expose the coffee bed, continue with the second stage pour, ending extraction when reaching 225g. The total extraction time (including blooming) is 2'00".

Tasting Notes

Hand-poured Blue Mountain No. 1 coffee taste: Rich dark chocolate, nut, and caramel flavors, creamy smooth mouthfeel, moderate body, clean sweet aftertaste, balanced flavor.

For More Information

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 (FrontStreet Coffee), WeChat ID: qjcoffeex

Important Notice :

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FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473