How Should Rainforest Alliance Certification Coffee Be Brewed?

Brewing Front Street's Jamaican Blue Mountain beans starts with the origin details. The beans come from Clifton Farm, owned by the Sharp family in St. Andrew Parish, covering 250 acres with 180 acres under coffee at an average elevation of 4,300 feet (1,310.64 meters). They are washed 100% Arabica Typica, roasted dark, with full body, nutty and chocolate notes, and bitterness without burntness.

Because the bean is roasted dark, the brewing plan should aim for a classic balanced cup rather than pushing extraction. Filter cup selection and pour parameters matter here, and the farm holds Rainforest Alliance certification, so buyers can trace both the origin rules and the farming standard. Jamaican CIB rules allow the Blue Mountain name only above 910 meters, which is why elevation is checked before anything else.

Many coffee enthusiasts who purchase Blue Mountain coffee beans from Front Street are often puzzled about how to hand-brew them to bring out their proper flavor. This article starts from Front Street's Blue Mountain coffee bean information to introduce you to the origin background of Clifton Farm, the legal production area and grade classification of Blue Mountain coffee, the washed processing method, and its balanced characteristics of full body, nutty and chocolate notes, and bitterness without burntness. At the same time, Front Street will share brewing ideas for this dark-roasted bean, including filter cup selection suggestions, to help you brew out classic balanced beauty.

Many friends buy Blue Mountain coffee beans at Front Street, but after returning home they are not sure how to hand-brew them to achieve the ideal taste. For this reason, Front Street has organized its own method for serving hand-brewed Blue Mountain coffee for everyone's reference.

FrontStreet Coffee Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee Bean Information Introduction

Farm owner: Clifton Farm of The Sharp family

Certification: Rainforest Alliance Certified

Location: St. Andrew Parish

Total area: 250 acres

Coffee cultivation area: 180 acres

Average elevation: 4,300 feet (1,310.64 meters)

Processing method: Washed

Variety: 100% Arabica Typica

If you want to learn how to brew a coffee, understanding the origin of the beans is an unavoidable first step. Different coffee beans need to be matched with different extraction plans. Front Street's Blue Mountain coffee comes from Clifton Farm, a farm with a history of more than two hundred years.

Here, Front Street would like to add a point of knowledge: exactly what kind of coffee beans are qualified to be called Blue Mountain coffee beans. The Blue Mountain range runs through three parishes in Jamaica (Jamaica's administrative planning districts), so the coffee production areas are accordingly divided into three parts: the Portland production area, and the St. Thomas and St. Andrew production areas. Clifton Farm is located in the St. Andrew production area. According to Jamaica CIB regulations, only coffee beans produced in the Blue Mountain area at elevations above 910 meters can bear the name Blue Mountain coffee. The entire Blue Mountain coffee growing area covers 18,000 hectares, of which only 6,000 hectares can be considered true Blue Mountain coffee; coffee produced in the remaining areas can only be called High Mountain coffee or Jamaican coffee.

The average elevation of Clifton Farm's coffee cultivation and processing areas is 4,300 feet (1,310.64 meters). Sufficiently high elevation, the shade brought by gentle afternoon clouds lingering around the mountain forests, abundant sunlight, and mineral-rich planting soil together create a good growing environment for coffee trees and also enable this place to consistently produce high-quality Blue Mountain coffee beans.

Even Blue Mountain coffee has grades. In the Blue Mountain coffee grading system, it is divided into No. 1, No. 2, and Peaberry, among which No. 1 has the best quality, using large beans of 17-18 screen size, with plump bodies and an attractive appearance.

The washed processing method used in Jamaica is a tradition that has been followed from more than two hundred years ago to the present. At that time, washed processing was a new processing method, and the resulting coffee had fewer defects and higher quality, which is why Jamaican coffee beans have long maintained high quality.

Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee beans show a very full body and flavor notes of nuts and chocolate. Although they belong to the bitter profile, they are bitter without being burnt, with sourness, sweetness, and bitterness in balance, making them extremely pleasant to drink. To achieve this effect, Front Street uses deep roasting and has adjusted the roasting curve several times to highlight the sweetness and full body of Blue Mountain coffee.

When brewing dark-roasted coffee beans such as Blue Mountain, Front Street recommends using a Kono dripper, because this can better enhance the coffee's full body; if you do not have a Kono on hand, you can also use a V60 dripper.

For professional coffee knowledge exchange and more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat public account: cafe_style) For more specialty coffee beans, please add the private WeChat of FrontStreet Coffee: qjcoffeex

The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.