What is Blue Mountain Style Coffee: Authentic Blue Mountain Coffee Bean Brands, Grades, and Flavor Characteristics

If you search for "Blue Mountain" on a search engine, you'll find numerous articles about how to identify authentic Blue Mountain coffee. Indeed, due to Blue Mountain coffee's international reputation, many unscrupulous merchants use the Blue Mountain name to sell lower-quality commercial coffee as genuine product, resulting in numerous fake Blue Mountain products on the market. For example, some merchants use terms like "Blue Mountain flavor," "Blue Mountain blend," or "Blue Mountain instant," which are actually completely unrelated to authentic Blue Mountain coffee.

What is Blue Mountain Flavor?

Blue Mountain coffee was once hailed as the "Hermès of the coffee world." The so-called "Blue Mountain flavor" offers rich, dense, and lasting chocolate and roasted hazelnut aromas, with a perfect balance of acidity, sweetness, bitterness, fragrance, and body. FrontStreet Coffee believes that Blue Mountain coffee's high reputation is inseparable from the careful management and strict grading by Jamaican growers.

The Blue Mountain region has unique terroir conditions, where the combination of various factors creates the perfect environment for growing coffee. As an agricultural product, coffee's final flavor is influenced by variety, altitude, harvesting, and post-processing methods.

According to the official division by the Jamaica Coffee Industry Board (CIB), only Typica variety coffee grown in forest areas at altitudes between 910-1700 meters can be called authentic "Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee." Typica requires high-altitude environments to express its best flavor characteristics, but the variety has poor disease resistance and is highly susceptible to infection. Additionally, single plants have low fruit yields, requiring more human care and attention. Furthermore, the high-altitude areas of the Blue Mountains have uneven terrain, making management and harvesting very difficult, thus requiring highly skilled harvest personnel, which further affects production. In recent years, less than 15% of Jamaican coffee beans can be labeled as Blue Mountain coffee, approximately 900 tons.

Many people may have heard the rumor: "Authentic Blue Mountain coffee has been monopolized by Japan." This statement is not without foundation. UCC, a Japanese coffee company formerly known as Ueshima Coffee Co., Ltd., established a farm in Jamaica in 1981 to operate the Blue Mountain coffee project. Jamaica committed to allocating 90% of Blue Mountain coffee quotas to Japan, coupled with Japan's strong promotion of Blue Mountain, leading to the phenomenon of high prices and difficulty in obtaining Blue Mountain coffee. Today, with the flourishing development of coffee culture, enjoying a cup of Blue Mountain coffee is no longer difficult. At FrontStreet Coffee, you can enjoy a cup of authentic FrontStreet Coffee Jamaican Blue Mountain No. 1 pour-over black coffee for just 60 yuan.

Not All Jamaican Coffee is Called "Blue Mountain Coffee"

The CIB has designated an area of approximately 6,000 hectares in the Blue Mountains, with strict regulations: only Typica coffee produced in this region can be called "Blue Mountain Coffee." Coffee from other regions is called High Mountain Coffee or Jamaica Prime Coffee.

According to the area divided by the CIB, the forest areas where Blue Mountain coffee is grown are at altitudes between 910-1700 meters, mainly distributed in St. Thomas, St. Mary, St. Andrew, and Portland, with a total area accounting for one-third of the entire Blue Mountain growing region.

In terms of green bean quality control, the CIB regulates the planting, production, and sales of Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee to improve coffee quality, standardize coffee production and processing procedures, while coordinating the market sales of Blue Mountain coffee. The CIB is also responsible for grading coffee produced in the Blue Mountains and quality testing. This means Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee sold worldwide must be certified by the CIB and carry its label.

Compared to other coffee-producing regions, Jamaica was the first country to recognize coffee's "regional flavor." The standards for evaluating Jamaican Blue Mountain green bean quality cover multiple categories: bean size, defect rate, color, uniformity, and cupping performance after roasting (including dry aroma, wet aroma, acidity, flavor, body, cleanliness, etc.).

Based on the above standards, Blue Mountain coffee is divided into 4 grades, from highest to lowest: Blue Mountain No. 1, Blue Mountain No. 2, Blue Mountain No. 3, and Blue Mountain Peaberry. Top-grade Blue Mountain No. 1 green beans must meet specifications of 17 mesh or larger, defect rate below 3%, moisture content around 13%, and present rich coffee aroma, smooth and balanced taste, low acidity, and lasting aftertaste in cupping. After quality testing, Blue Mountain coffee beans of different grades are transported using different materials. Blue Mountain No. 1, No. 2, and No. 3 are the only coffees in the world exported in wooden barrels, with three specifications: 70 kg, 30 kg, and 15 kg. Other grades of Jamaican coffee are exported in 60 kg jute bags.

How to Brew Blue Mountain Flavor?

FrontStreet Coffee aims to highlight the rich and mellow taste of FrontStreet Coffee Jamaican Blue Mountain No. 1 coffee, using a KONO coffee filter for extraction. The KONO's ribs are less than half the height of the filter cup. This design ensures the filter paper fits closely against the filter cup wall after wetting, restricting airflow and increasing the water absorption time of coffee particles, resulting in more uniform extraction. By the way, the KONO filter is not only suitable for FrontStreet Coffee Jamaican Blue Mountain No. 1 but can also be used for brewing FrontStreet Coffee Brazil Queen Estate, FrontStreet Coffee PWN Gold Mandheling, and other medium-dark roasted coffee beans.

Brewing parameters: 15g coffee, ratio 1:15, grind size: EK43s setting 10.5 (75% retention rate on China #20 standard sieve), water temperature: 87-88°C, brewing method: segmented extraction.

Place the filter paper in the KONO filter, pour water to wet the filter paper and ensure it fits well. Pour in the coffee grounds and tap gently to distribute the powder layer evenly. First, gently pour 30g of water for blooming, with a blooming time of 30 seconds. Second, pour to about 125g of water, circling evenly and steadily outward. Then wait for the coffee liquid to drop, and when it drops to half, pour the final water to reach 225g. Wait for all the coffee to drip through, with a total extraction time of about 2 minutes.

The pour-over FrontStreet Coffee Jamaican Blue Mountain No. 1 coffee presents dark chocolate and nutty notes, with a very rich body and distinct almond aftertaste. As the temperature decreases, roasted hazelnut and creamy sweet silkiness emerge, accompanied by a hint of gentle acidity and caramel sweetness, with aroma that lingers persistently in the mouth.

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