Blue Mountain Coffee Introduction - Essential Guide to Gourmet Coffee

Around the turn of the millennium, whether in films, television shows, books, or newspapers, Blue Mountain Coffee was portrayed as the equivalent of the legendary 1982 Lafite Rothschild, with its premium price seemingly putting it beyond the reach of ordinary people. So, is the legendary Blue Mountain Coffee truly as precious as rumored? How much does it cost to enjoy a cup in 2025? FrontStreet Coffee believes many people are already rubbing their hands in anticipation, so without further ado, let's dive right into the topic.

First and foremost, Blue Mountain Coffee is a specialty coffee produced in Jamaica. "Specialty coffee" refers to coffee made from the highest quality beans, roasted appropriately to maximize their potential flavor, and extracted consistently under specific conditions. It doesn't merely refer to the brewing process but encompasses numerous details from the coffee's growth to its preparation.

Specialty coffee begins with the origin of coffee life, the diversity of coffee varieties, and the differences in growing conditions (temperature, soil, sunlight, altitude, etc.). It also includes human factors during the growing process: careful cultivation, manual harvesting, meticulous processing, and hand-sorting.

Blue Mountain Coffee perfectly embodies the essence of specialty coffee from variety to planting, harvesting to processing, roasting to presentation to consumers. FrontStreet Coffee originally wanted to briefly discuss the characteristics of Blue Mountain Coffee beans.

Blue Mountain Coffee Growing Environment

According to Jamaica's Industrial Board regulations, only coffee grown in the four regions of St. Andrew, St. Mary, St. Thomas, and Portland, at altitudes between 910-1700m, can be called Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee.

Other coffee produced at altitudes between 460 to 910 meters can only be called "Jamaica High Mountain Coffee." Coffee produced below 460 meters can only be called "Jamaica Prime Coffee" or "Jamaica Low Mountain Coffee."

FrontStreet Coffee's Blue Mountain No. 1 coffee beans are selected from coffee grown at Clifton Mountain Estate, Jamaica's oldest coffee plantation, at an altitude of 1310m. Since coffee trees are planted on relatively steep slopes, harvesting is quite challenging. Clifton Mountain Estate arranges for local women familiar with the terrain to harvest coffee fruits with appropriate ripeness at high altitudes, resulting in very high-quality coffee.

Blue Mountain Coffee Varieties

Blue Mountain Coffee is 100% pure Arabica bloodline, representing the oldest coffee variety in the Arabica coffee lineage—Typica.

This variety was introduced to the Blue Mountains for cultivation in the 18th century. After 200 years of "adaptation," Blue Mountain's Typica has developed into an Arabica variety with relatively good disease resistance, very suitable for local cultivation, and has formed delicate flavors that cannot be easily replicated elsewhere.

Blue Mountain Coffee Processing Method

Traditional Blue Mountain Coffee uses the washed processing method. In 2021, Clifton Mountain Estate introduced a natural-processed Blue Mountain No. 1 coffee bean. After FrontStreet Coffee conducted cupping comparisons of both processing methods, it was found that the natural-processed Blue Mountain Coffee had inferior overall balance compared to the washed process, highlighting berry acidity.

The greatest characteristic of Blue Mountain Coffee lies in its balanced sweet-sour-bitter flavor and rich, solid mouthfeel. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee currently offers Blue Mountain No. 1 coffee beans using the washed processing method.

Clifton Mountain Estate first conducts initial manual sorting of defective beans from harvested coffee fruits, removes the outer skin using machines, then places them in water tanks for fermentation for 12-18 hours to remove the mucilage layer. Next, they are moved to clean water tanks for multiple washings and a second screening of defective beans. The clean parchment coffee is drained of moisture, spread on raised beds to dry until the bean moisture content reaches 10-12%, and finally stored in wooden barrels in temperature and humidity-controlled warehouses. Hulling and quality testing are performed before shipping when orders are received.

Blue Mountain Coffee Roasting Method

To highlight the balanced sweet-sour-bitter nutty notes of Blue Mountain Coffee and to restore more classic Blue Mountain flavors, FrontStreet Coffee's roaster roasts the coffee beans to a medium-dark degree, allowing the coffee to have distinct richness while retaining soft fruit acidity.

FrontStreet Coffee uses a Yangjia 800N roaster for Blue Mountain Coffee beans, with a batch size of 480g. The drum temperature is set to 170°C when beans are loaded, with the damper at 3. After 1 minute, adjust heat to 140°C, keeping the damper unchanged. At 5'10", temperature reaches 153°C, bean surface turns yellow, grassy aroma completely disappears, dehydration is complete. Heat is adjusted to 115°C, damper to 4. At 8'00", ugly wrinkles and black spots appear on the bean surface, toast aroma clearly transforms to coffee aroma, which can be defined as the prelude to first crack. At this point, listen carefully for the first crack sound. At 8'12", first crack begins, reduce heat to 90°C, fully open the damper (adjust heat very carefully, not so low that there's no cracking sound), and finish at 201.3°C.

Blue Mountain Coffee Brewing Method

All coffee beans sold by FrontStreet Coffee are shipped within 5 days of roasting, ensuring customers receive coffee beans with the best flavor and aroma. This is also a crucial step for specialty coffee: freshness!

Due to the darker roast, coffee compounds dissolve more easily in water, so FrontStreet Coffee recommends using slightly lower temperature hot water to extract coffee ground at medium-coarse level or above. For daily brewing at FrontStreet Coffee's retail locations, they use a Kono dripper, 88°C water temperature, 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio, 15g coffee dose, and grind size: sugar granule size (70% pass-through rate on #20 standard sieve).

Combined with segmented pouring: First pour 30g of water for blooming, with a blooming time of 30 seconds. Second pour to approximately 125g, then wait for the coffee liquid to drop. When it drops to half, pour the final segment to 225g. End extraction when all coffee has finished dripping through, with total extraction time typically around 2 minutes and 10 seconds.

Pour-over "FrontStreet Coffee Blue Mountain No. 1" flavor profile: Rich dark chocolate and nutty flavors, creamy smooth texture, with balanced sweet, sour, and bitter notes.

Important Notice :

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FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473