FrontStreet Coffee · Island Coffee: Jamaica Blue Mountain, Hawaii Kona, Puerto Rico Coffee Flavor Characteristics

Specialty coffee is fresh coffee. Whether it's food or beverages, fresher is always better, and the same applies to specialty coffee. Before brewing specialty coffee, the coffee beans should be kept fresh, including proper storage of roasted beans and grinding the coffee beans only right before preparation—this is essential to preserve their most original and best flavors. Pour-over coffee brewing is exactly such a method for making specialty coffee, and it's also one of the brewing methods that best preserves the coffee's original flavor. Specialty coffee is good coffee that is harmless to health. Unlike coffee made from inferior coffee beans, specialty coffee uses high-quality coffee beans and is freshly prepared, making it harmless to physical health, and moderate consumption can actually be beneficial for both body and mind.

Island Coffee (Islands)

Island coffee is often separated from other coffee-producing regions and classified as a distinct category. These coffees from island origins have two major characteristics: one is their fame—for example, Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee and Hawaii Kona coffee are well-known even to people who don't drink coffee. The other characteristic is their extremely high price! Due to limited cultivation areas, island coffee production is very scarce, making it valuable according to the principle of rarity. Island coffees typically have rich milky aromas and abundant floral qualities, with often delicate brightness in terms of mouthfeel. Additionally, most island coffees have very high standards of green bean processing, with beautiful bean shapes and low defect rates being another common feature.

Hawaii

Aroma: 3.5 points, Brightness: 4.5 points, Body: 3.5 points, Flavor: 4.5 points, Aftertaste: 4.5 points

Suitable roasting level: City/Full city. Generally recommended to roast to the middle of the second crack, though roasting to the beginning of the second crack is also excellent.

Hawaii is the only US state that produces coffee, with production located on the Kona island within the Hawaiian islands. The average quality of Kona beans is quite high, and processing is very meticulous. Typically, defective beans of poor appearance in general green beans range between 10%~30%, but Kona's defective beans are counted by individual beans—usually, less than 10 defective beans can be found in a pound of Kona beans! The highest grade coffee beans are called Extra Fancy, with the next grade called Fancy; the main difference between them is bean size. They taste extremely similar to high-altitude Central American beans, with quite rich flavors. Due to low production and high wages, they are expensive. Recently, other Hawaiian islands have also started growing coffee beans, and there are even counterfeit products on the market, so caution is needed when purchasing.

Puerto Rico

Aroma: 3.5 points, Brightness: 4 points, Body: 3 points, Flavor: 4.5 points, Aftertaste: 4 points

Suitable roasting level: City/Full city. At city roast, the overall feeling is closest to Blue Mountain; at full city, the mouthfeel is fullest.

If you particularly love the taste of Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee but your bank account cannot support it, then your only choice is Puerto Rico! Puerto Rico's Yauco Selecto has 80% of Blue Mountain's capability but costs only half the price! It has rich creamy flavors with medium body texture, elegant acidity, and drinks very smoothly. Yauco Selecto's annual production is less than 1% of the entire island, coupled with complex and meticulous processing procedures and high local wages, making it impossible not to be expensive. Although it belongs to the same high-price category as Hawaii Kona, it is already much cheaper than Jamaica Blue Mountain.

Jamaica

Aroma: 3.5 points, Brightness: 4 points, Body: 4 points, Flavor: 5 points, Aftertaste: 5 points

Suitable roasting level: City roast, at most can be roasted to the very beginning of the second crack.

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