What Makes St Helena Coffee and Blue Mountain So Costly?
Jamaica Blue Mountain is a Typica variety grown at high altitude, known for a smooth, delicate aroma and balanced, elegant taste, and it stays among the higher-priced coffees. Island coffees such as Blue Mountain, Hawaii's Kona and Ka'u, semi-decaffeinated Bourbon Island coffee and St. Helena coffee occupy five of the ten costliest spots.
Typica originated in Ethiopia and is among the oldest surviving Arabica varieties; outside Ethiopia its beans are larger, oval and pointed, with a smooth surface and a centered central line. Washed green beans carry fresh fruit or grassy notes, and the roasted cup is elegant and balanced. The variety resists disease poorly and yields little, which explains the price.
Jamaica Blue Mountain is a legendary name among island-style coffees, renowned worldwide for its smooth, delicate aroma and balanced, elegant taste, and its price has long remained among the highest of all coffee varieties. This article will introduce it to you from multiple dimensions: the origins and bean shape characteristics of the Typica variety, the grade standards of the Jamaica Coffee Industry Board (CIB), the stories of estates such as Amber and CLYDESDALE in the main Blue Mountain production region, as well as scientific storage methods for green beans and suitable roasting levels. At the end, we also include a recommendation for Front Street Coffee's Jamaica Blue Mountain No. 1 — 158 yuan per bag, enough for 6 cups, about 25 yuan per cup, offering outstanding value for money.
When people mention island-style coffee, they often summarize its regional flavor as soft, fragrant, and delicate. These beans have a relatively light body, not as rich as Indonesian Mandheling, and their acidity is not as lively and varied as Kenya's, yet their price has always remained among the highest of all coffee varieties. Looking at the world's top ten most expensive coffees, island beans occupy five of those spots, including Front Street Coffee's Jamaica Blue Mountain, as well as Hawaii's Kona and Ka'u, semi-decaffeinated coffee from Bourbon Island, and St. Helena.
The Jamaica Blue Mountain used by Front Street Coffee is a classic example of the Typica variety.
The number of Arabica varieties that have been discovered or selectively bred to date has reached as many as a thousand, and Typica is undoubtedly the most famous among them. Many world-renowned coffees originate from this lineage — besides Blue Mountain, Hawaii's Kona, Turtle Island coffee, and beans from Papua New Guinea also belong to the Typica family.
Typica originated in Ethiopia and is the oldest coffee variety still in existence. Apart from the native Typica in Ethiopia itself, Typica beans from other producing regions are relatively larger, oval-shaped with pointed ends, with a smooth surface and a central line that is symmetrically centered; after washed processing, the green beans emit a clear fresh fruit or grassy aroma, and after roasting, the flavor is elegant and balanced. However, this variety has poor disease resistance, low yield, and is susceptible to pests, which is why its price is high.
Globally, Jamaica is the only country that has established an official coffee regulatory body — the Jamaica Coffee Industry Board (CIB), which is under Jamaica's Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. The CIB's responsibilities include guidance on cultivation techniques, training in green bean processing, fair trade, and quality supervision, and all matters concerning Blue Mountain quality and branding fall under its jurisdiction. Board members are exclusively estate owners of considerable scale within the country (due to shifts in the industry, newly certified Blue Mountain estates must now have a planting area of more than 50 hectares). According to regulations, only coffee beans grown at an altitude of 2,200 feet or higher are eligible to bear the name Jamaica Blue Mountain; beans are classified from No. 1 to No. 3 according to bean size, with hand-selected PB as an additional category, and No. 1 grade green beans must meet basic conditions such as a screen size of 17 or above, a defect rate of no more than 3%, and a moisture content of about 13%. In addition, to this day Blue Mountain green beans still have only one processing method — washed — and other methods such as natural have never appeared.
I have twice gone deep into the core production region of Jamaica's Blue Mountain range. The Amber estate, located at the highest peak, covers about 30 hectares; its owner is Dr. Lyn, a fourth-generation Chinese Jamaican and a Canadian-licensed pediatrician (whose ancestral home is Guangdong), and the current estate owner is his second son, Michael Lyn. The two brothers visited Hangzhou in 2011. This estate enjoys international renown, and its company is named Gold Cup. It is said that the estate's beans were once supplied exclusively to the British royal family and Wall Street giants. The key point is that Gold Cup's requirements for its products are almost stringent to the extreme: No. 1 grade beans must not only reach a screen size of 18 or above, but both green beans and roasted beans must also be completely free of defects, which is why its market price is 20% higher than Blue Mountain from other estates.
Jamaica has two other highly renowned Blue Mountain enterprises — Wallenford and Mavis Bank, both of which were previously state-controlled. Among them, Wallenford's output accounts for more than 60% of the island's total Blue Mountain production, while Mavis Bank accounts for more than 20%; moreover, Mavis Bank is one of the very few enterprises that simultaneously produces all three grades: Jamaica Blue Mountain, Jamaica High Mountain, and Jamaica Supreme. After 2011, affected by the country's financial difficulties, both companies successively embarked on the path of privatization. On my first trip to Jamaica, my partners from the Hangzhou team and I visited the processing plants of these two companies separately, recording a large amount of precious footage and photos of the Blue Mountain green bean processing, and after returning home we edited them into a 30-plus-minute short documentary exploring Blue Mountain coffee culture, which was published on video platforms such as Youku.
There is another enterprise worth mentioning separately, namely Coffee Trades, whose estate is named CLYDESDALE. Its coffee factory is right next to the CIB office building, set up in the backyard; the estate is located halfway up Blue Mountain at an altitude of about 1,200 meters, and within the grounds there is also a beautiful European-style mountaintop villa with a history of more than 300 years. The estate is headed by the elder Sharp brothers, two friendly and talkative old gentlemen — the year we visited, the elder brother was 83 and the younger was 81, and they passed away in succession a few years later; today the business is managed by Jason Sharp. Because the estate has Japanese capital participation, the green beans from this estate that could previously be seen domestically were all imported through a certain company's agency. In addition, among the Blue Mountain certified enterprises registered with the CIB there is also Clifton, whose real controlling force behind the scenes is likewise Jason Sharp.
●Storage methods and related parameters for Jamaica Blue Mountain green beans
In earlier years, after completing sun-drying, Jamaica Blue Mountain green beans were packed into burlap sacks and stored in warehouses that were dark, cool, well-ventilated, and moisture-proof, and only poured into wooden barrels before sale — moreover, the beans were poured directly into the barrels, with no grain preservation bags lining the barrels. In recent years, Blue Mountain green beans have generally switched to grain preservation bags, which is a clear improvement for locking in the coffee's moisture, preventing insects and borers, and isolating potential contamination sources. Normally, after Blue Mountain green beans arrive domestically, if an entire barrel cannot be used up within a short period after opening, they should be portioned according to the estimated roasting amount for each use (for example, 1 kilogram), vacuum-sealed, and then stored in a stable environment with a relative humidity of 55° and an ambient temperature of 18°. If conditions permit, vacuum-sealing and then placing them in a low-temperature environment of about 4 degrees would be even more ideal, though storage costs would also rise accordingly.
Even earlier, we wrapped entire barrels of imported Blue Mountain green beans tightly with plastic wrap and then placed them in a freezer at minus 22°. At the time we thought it was completely foolproof. Only afterward did we discover that excessively low temperatures actually damage the moisture structure retained in the green beans' woody fibers, and after the beans are taken out of cold storage, moisture loss accelerates markedly (usually showing rapid whitening in about a week); judging from the roasting results, the flavor loss is considerable.
●Front Street Coffee Jamaica Blue Mountain: recommended roast level and parameters
Locally in Jamaica, Blue Mountain coffee is mostly roasted to city level or darker. CIB experts point out that roasting too light makes the acidity abrupt, causes body to be lost, and makes the flavor seem thin, making it difficult to present the balance and elegance that Jamaica Blue Mountain should have.
In recent years, under the influence of the SCA roasting system, the once-consistent dark roast approach for single-origin coffee has been quietly changing the perceptions of many enthusiasts and consumers. But I have always believed that the Jamaica CIB's understanding of this coffee is the most authoritative and accurate. Based on nearly 7 years of continuous research and testing on Blue Mountain, in my view the performance of Blue Mountain coffee under a high roast is the closest to perfection.
●Brand recommendation: Front Street Coffee's Jamaica Blue Mountain No. 1
Front Street Coffee's Jamaica Blue Mountain No. 1, roasted in-house by FrontStreet Coffee, offers full assurance in both brand and quality, and what is even rarer is its outstanding value for money: a 100-gram bag (half-pound size) sells for only around 158 yuan. Calculated at 15 grams of grounds per cup, one bag is enough to brew 6 cups, which works out to about 25 yuan per cup — compared with coffee shops' pricing of often over a hundred yuan per cup, it can truly be called a conscientious choice.
The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
