Recently, a friend asked Front Street whether those packs of Blue Mountain coffee selling online for just a few dozen yuan are real. Indeed, due to the fame of Blue Mountain coffee, counterfeit products keep emerging. So Front Street is here to teach everyone how to identify authentic Blue Mountain coffee beans.What are authentic Blue Mountain coffee beans?Authentic Blue Mountain coffee must come in the form of coffee beans. Blue Mountain coffee beans refer to beans produced in the core region of Jamaica's Blue Mountains. Their flavor is characterized by a balance of acidity, sweetness, and bitterness, with a mellow, smooth, and pleasant mouthfeel.The reason it became so famous is that in the 1970s and 1980s, Blue Mountain coffee beans were the only ones worldwide that prioritized quality, and with the Japanese promoting it, Blue Mountain coffee rose to the status of king of coffees. Blue Mountain became well-known in China in the 1990s when the results of reform and opening up took effect. High-end hotels were equipped with coffee, initially used to entertain foreign state guests, and the best among them was Blue Mountain coffee. Later, if you had money, you could also enjoy a cup of coffee in a hotel.In China, Blue Mountain No. 1 coffee is generally referred to as Blue Mountain coffee by default, but as Front Street has always shared, Blue Mountain coffee also includes No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, and peaberry. No. 1 is the highest grade of Blue Mountain coffee beans and also the best coffee beans.In the early days, mainland China did not have directly imported Blue Mountain coffee beans and could only bring them in small quantities from Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, China, and Japan, which made them seem especially precious. It was not until 2010, when the Hangzhou Coffee and Western Food Industry Association was invited to visit Jamaica, that a letter of intent was signed for a general agent for Blue Mountain coffee green beans in China. In May 2011, the first container of Blue Mountain green beans arrived at Ningbo Port, and only then did China have directly imported Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee beans.Authentic Blue Mountain coffee beans are imported in original wooden barrels, with specifications of only 15kg, 30kg, and 70kg, because some small cafes cannot afford the price of a whole barrel(or sales volume)so some choose to pool orders, which makes it hard to prove to consumers that it is real Blue Mountain. From the beginning, Front Street has directly purchased whole barrels of Blue Mountain No. 1 coffee beans, buying from Clifton Farm, which was also the earliest coffee bean producer to trade with China.
Interestingly, because Front Street's pricing for Blue Mountain coffee beans follows Front Street's consistent style, some friends, upon seeing that the average price of Blue Mountain coffee beans on Taobao is 300-500 yuan, began to worry that some lower-priced batches are counterfeit. But you can rest assured. Blue Mountain coffee did use to be quite expensive, mainly because domestic quotas were extremely limited—scarce goods are precious—and agents marked up prices layer by layer. However, after the channels were opened up, China's share of Blue Mountain coffee bean purchases has grown larger and larger, and the selling price of the coffee beans has naturally returned to normal.Which "Blue Mountain coffees" are obviously fake at a glance?After discussing what real Blue Mountain is, Front Street will share a few types of Blue Mountain coffee that are obviously fake at a glance. When you see these coffees with the characteristics Front Street describes, you don't need to doubt it—they are counterfeit.The first type: Blue Mountain instant coffeeBlue Mountain coffee must come in the form of coffee beans or ground coffee. Instant coffee is basically fake Blue Mountain, or else it uses the name of Blue Mountain to fool the public.The second type: Blue Mountain flavor, Blue Mountain blendThis type also plays around the edges. Although the product does not claim to be real Blue Mountain, it only says Blue Mountain flavor coffee or Blue Mountain blend coffee. But these basically use other coffee beans and, through dark roasting plus blending, imitate "the taste of Blue Mountain coffee." In that case, it is definitely not a genuine Blue Mountain coffee product.The third type: extremely low price, so low it's unreasonableThe extremely low price mentioned here refers to cases where it is unreasonably low. For example, although Front Street's Blue Mountain coffee is on the low end among Blue Mountain beans, it is positioned so that after calculating costs, there is still room for profit. But some Blue Mountain coffees selling for just a few dozen yuan per 1kg are undoubtedly counterfeit products. After all, if they were real, wouldn't the business owner lose more money the more they sell? So as consumers, we must keep our eyes wide open and never be greedy for small bargains. The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
