Blue Mountain Coffee

“The samples from the Blue Mountains and other fine Jamaican mountain estates are such that there really is nothing but praise to bestow on the way they have been prepared – and I am unable to suggest any improvement on coffee which is nearly as perfect as possible whether in appearance or what is more important still, in taste.”

A British coffee expert bestowed this compliment on samples of Jamaican coffee sent to the Colonial Exhibition in London, in 1887. Today, Jamaica’s Blue Mountain coffee continues to rank as the best in the world, giving pleasure to Royalty and to the world’s most exacting connoisseurs who seek the best at whatever cost.

This gemlike Caribbean island also produces two other superior grades – High Mountain Supreme and Prime Jamaica Washed. It is the combination of topography, geology, and climate which combine to create uniquely suitable conditions for these fine coffees.

The mountains are the cradle of Jamaican coffee. From a narrow coastal plain, they soar to meet inland, and from a spine running east to west across the island. Highest, are the Blue Mountains, in the east, which reach 7,402 feet.

In the mountains, altitude and latitude combine to produce a climate which is always cool and misty, yet never cold: where rainfall is high, and the soil is well drained. The coffee trees with their glossy leaves, fragrant white flowers and berries clustered along the limbs, grow under the shade of avocado and banana trees on terraces which respect the contour lines of the land to avoid soil erosion.

Coffee grows at altitudes ranging from 1,500 feet up to around 5,000 feet, and premium Blue Mountain coffee grows at the higher levels in the eastern parishes of St. Thomas, Portland, and St. Andrew, within a 10-mile radius of the Blue Mountain Peak.

Here, more so than anywhere else, all the elements combine to produce a coffee which comes close to perfect balance-where aroma, body, acidity and sweetness create an unmistakably clean flavour and bouquet.

The Blue Mountain coffee bean is bold, with a distinct blue-green colour. In the cup, it can be distinguished by its excellent body, mild acidity, and sweet flavour. Its unique aroma is unusually strong and appealing to the coffee connoisseur.

The unquestioned quality of Blue Mountain coffee has combined with another factor-scarcity – to create a high demand which is reflected in the price of this premium product.

Growing on mountains terrain, with slopes as steep as one in five, each bean is the result of careful effort, Jamaican small farmers and skilled labourers till the soil, care the trees and reap the cherry berries week by week. Many of the coffee workers are from families for whom the industry has been the mainstay for generations.

The manual work, the care and personal attention are key factors in the Jamaican coffee industry. Even the largest producers are relatively speaking small farmers who know their trees and who personally oversee the production of coffee beans for the local and export market.
The tradition of coffee growing in the mountains of Jamaica has been entrenched over the past two centuries, during which time cultural practices have improved and high standards have been increasingly stressed.

Records show the arrival of coffee in Jamaica in 1725, imported in by the then Governor Sir Nicholas Lawes, who planted seven Arabica seedlings on his estate at Temple Hall – in the foothills of the parish of St. Andrew.

These seedlings were from the French Caribbean island of Martinique which itself had received coffee plants in 1717, by order of King Louis XV. The story goes that the French monarch entrusted three plants to on of his sea captains. One survived and from this single seedling, coffee reached Central America and the Caribbean.

In Jamaica, suitable conditions led the coffee to flourish, and plantings extended rapidly. Within nine years, export levels of 83,000 lbs of clean beans were recorded.

In 1932, an Act of Parliament encouraged coffee plantings, to reduce the island’s economic dependence on “King Sugar”, and the Haitian Revolution of the late 18th Century led many dispossessed French coffee planters to move into Jamaica’s Blue Mountains.

By the start of the 19th Century, Jamaica had some 686 coffee plantations, and production was growing, until it peaked in 1932 with over 33 million lbs of clean beans reaped. But soaring labour cost following the abolition of slavery in 1834, combined with the British Free Trade policy of the mid-19th Century, and increased competition from Latin America: and Jamaican coffee lost ground.

The mid-1940s saw the beginning of a resurgence with a Jamaican government, newly granted internal self-government, establishing a Coffee Industry Board to regulate the production, processing and marketing of coffee. Production incentives were granted to growers, and guidelines were established for grading the product, along with a uniform trade classification for green coffee. The Costa Rican dwarf variety was introduced, and better husbandry practices were encouraged.

Around this time too, the island’s premium coffee gained an invaluable convert in the person of author Ian Fleming, who spent many of his later years in Jamaica. His famous hero, James Bond – Agent 007 – would insist on a pot of Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee as the only fitting complement to a perfect breakfast.

To ensure that the quality Bond sought is consistently available to true connoisseurs everywhere, the Coffee Industry Board certifies all Jamaican coffee, and issues a specially designed seal of authenticity to all green and roasted coffee exported from the island.

For Blue Mountain Coffee, six identifying marks signify the factory of origin: Mavis Bank Central Factory (M.B.C.F.), Blue Mountain Coffee Co-operative (M.H.G.G.T.), Portland Blue Mountain Coffee Co-operative (P.C.C.S.H.), as well as Coffee Industry Board (Wallenford), Coffee Industry Board (Sir John’s Peak), and (J.A.S. Langley).

Most of Jamaica’s green coffee and virtually all the Blue Mountain coffee is sold on the open market, with Japan being the major buyer. Beans certified as Blue Mountain and High Mountain Supreme are packaged and shipped in 160 kilo (net) finely wrought wooden barrels, which are specially produced for the Coffee Industry Board and clearly marked as to source. Beans classified as Prime Jamaica Washed are exported in standard 60 kilo burlap bags.

The Jamaican Coffee Board has also encouraged moves to export roasted and packaged coffee in the interest of ensuring product integrity and local value added.

Quality is the supreme concern form picking to packing for export and the careful process of pulping, washing, curing, hulling and sorting is followed by an age old process – whereby the coffee is inspected for appearance and cup-tested by professionals to ensure that it lives up to the flavour, aroma, and taste for which it is famous. The tastings, which are the responsibility of the Coffee Industry Board’s quality control section, are events steeped in tradition, not unlike the practice with fine chateau-bottled wine.

Product winning the approval of these discerning experts, can be sold by the Coffee Industry Board on the basis of a description communicated by cable – a unique position, as other exporters must present samples before any deal is closed.

The demand for premium Jamaican coffee continues to outstrip supply, and efforts are underway locally to expand acreages of Blue Mountain coffee, and other varieties. These efforts are expected to yield fruit by the mid 1990’s.

Up to the mid-1980’s the island annual production has averaged 3.5 million lbs of clean beans, with Blue Mountain coffee accounting for about 25 percent of this total. On average, exports have totalled 65 percent of total production or some2.6 million lbs of clean beans, with some 875,000 lbs remaining to meet the needs of the local market.

The annual production figures are the result of individual and combined efforts by some 60,000 Jamaican farmers, some of them producing as little as half a box – about five lbs of clean beans – each year: others as much as 2,000 boxes.

Through their painstaking efforts, and the Board’s ceaseless monitoring, Jamaican coffee continues to earn its reputation as the peak of perfection and the choice of true coffee connoisseurs the world over.