Do You Know About Coffee Bean Varieties? How Much Does a Cup of Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee Cost?

FrontStreet Coffee's Three Major Varieties and Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee Knowledge Sharing

Coffee belongs to the Rubiaceae family, genus Coffea—evergreen shrubs. The Coffea genus contains over 100 species, but very few produce beans of commercial value. Only Arabica, Robusta, and Liberica make the cut, which is why they are honored as the three major native coffee species. Typica is a derivative of Arabica, and the famous Blue Mountain coffee is a Typica variety.

Blue Mountain Coffee

Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee—and High Mountain Coffee as well—is divided into four grades. Ranked from highest to lowest quality: No.1, No.2, No.3, and PB (short for Peaberry). By CIB standards, only coffee grown at altitudes above 666 meters may be called Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee.

High Mountain Coffee

Jamaica High Mountain Supreme coffee beans are those grown in the Blue Mountain region below 666 meters. They rank second only to Blue Mountain Coffee in quality and are known in the trade as Blue Mountain's brother variety. Because genuine Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee is produced in such tiny quantities, High Mountain Coffee is your best bet if you simply want to taste Jamaican-style coffee.

Jamaica Coffee

Jamaica Prime coffee beans are grown outside the Blue Mountain range altogether. Chinese coffee professionals long held a misconception that only coffee grown above 1800 meters could be called Blue Mountain Coffee. In fact, only one estate sits on the Blue Mountain peaks above 1800 meters: Amber, owned by a person of Chinese descent surnamed Lyn (Lin) whose ancestral home is Guangdong. The estate covers just 30 hectares, so its output is very limited. Blue Mountain Coffee is mainly distributed across five mountain areas: John Crow, St. John's Peak, Mossman's Peak, High Peak, and Blue Mountain Peak.

The flavor is exceptionally clean, and Blue Mountain ranks among the sweetest coffees in the world. Jim Reynolds of Peet's Coffee and Tea put it this way: "The best examples of Jamaica's Blue Mountain coffee have an aromatic, smooth richness that gives me a sense of gem-like quality. It's as precious as a gemstone. It's complex yet very mild, sweet, and has very strong body. You must taste it to understand what I'm talking about." Unique growing conditions and meticulous care at every production step have made Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee legendary: rich and mellow, with the sweet, sour, and bitter notes in perfect harmony—no harsh bitterness at all, just moderate, polished acidity and a persistent fruity aftertaste.

Different coffee shops price their Blue Mountain Coffee differently, with some charging well over a hundred yuan a cup—so how much a cup costs depends entirely on where you drink it.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If the real thing is on your list, FrontStreet Coffee's Jamaica Blue Mountain No.1 is the grade to go for. The lot comes from the historic Clifton Estate, where coffee has been grown since around 1750 at an average of 4300 feet (1310.64 meters), and full certificates of origin plus the original wooden shipping barrels—packed in the traditional 15, 45, or 70 kg sizes—let you trace every bean back to Jamaica.

The green beans themselves tell the truth as well: authentic Blue Mountain is uniform, plump, slightly upturned at both ends, and green in color, and the cup is dense, fragrant, and perfectly clean with no off-flavors whatsoever—something no counterfeit can imitate. FrontStreet Coffee roasts it medium-dark, keeping the coffee fresh within 5 days of roasting so it arrives at full flavor.

To brew it properly, rest the beans 4-7 days from the roast date, then use a Kono dripper with 15g of coffee at a 1:15 ratio, ground to about white-sugar coarseness, with water at 87-88°C in three pours: 30g to bloom for 30 seconds, up to 120g, then finish at 225g. That is the recipe for Blue Mountain's signature balance—chocolate sweetness, a strong mellow body, gentle acidity, and a long fruity finish.