Recently, a friend asked Front Street whether those dozens-of-yuan large bags of Blue Mountain coffee online are real. Indeed, because of Blue Mountain coffee's fame, counterfeit products keep emerging. So Front Street will teach everyone how to identify authentic Blue Mountain coffee beans.What are authentic Blue Mountain coffee beans?
Authentic Blue Mountain coffee must appear in the form of coffee beans. Blue Mountain coffee beans refer to coffee beans produced in the core area of Jamaica's Blue Mountains. Their flavor is characterized by a balance of acidity, sweetness, and bitterness, with a rich, smooth, and comfortable mouthfeel.
The reason it is so famous is that in the 1970s and 1980s, worldwide, only Blue Mountain coffee beans achieved such an emphasis on quality, and with the promotion by the Japanese, Blue Mountain coffee reached the status of king of coffee. Blue Mountain became famous in China because in the 1990s, when the results of reform and opening up became evident, high-end hotels were equipped with coffee. This coffee was initially used to entertain foreign state guests, and the best among it was Blue Mountain coffee. Later, if you had money, you could also drink a cup of coffee in a hotel.Domestically, by default, Blue Mountain No. 1 coffee is generally called Blue Mountain coffee, but in fact, 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 yet have directly imported Blue Mountain coffee beans and could only bring them in small batches from Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, China, and Japan, so they seemed 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 for the general agency of Blue Mountain coffee green beans in China was signed. 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 only three specifications: 15kg, 30kg, and 70kg, because some small cafes cannot afford the price of one barrel(or sales volume)so some choose to pool orders, which makes it very difficult to prove to consumers that it is true Blue Mountain. From the beginning, Front Street has directly purchased whole barrels of Blue Mountain No. 1 coffee beans, buying from Clifton Farm, which is also the earliest coffee bean producer to trade with China.
Interestingly, because Front Street's pricing of Blue Mountain coffee beans follows Front Street's consistent style, some friends, when 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 there is no need to worry. Blue Mountain coffee did indeed used to be quite expensive, mainly because the domestic quota was extremely small, and scarcity drives up the price, plus agents marked up layer by layer. But after the channels were opened up, China's share of Blue Mountain coffee bean purchases has also grown larger and larger, so the selling price of the coffee beans has naturally returned to normal.Which kinds of "Blue Mountain coffee" are obviously fake at a glance?
After discussing which are true Blue Mountain, Front Street shares several types of Blue Mountain coffee that are obviously fake at a glance. When you see these coffees with the characteristics introduced by Front Street, there is no need to doubt it—they are counterfeit.The first type: Blue Mountain instant coffee
Blue Mountain coffee must appear in the form of coffee beans or ground powder. Instant coffee is basically fake Blue Mountain, or uses the name of Blue Mountain to fool the public.The second type: Blue Mountain flavor, Blue Mountain blend
This type also plays at the edges. Although the product does not state that it is true Blue Mountain, only writing Blue Mountain flavor coffee or Blue Mountain blend coffee, these basically use other coffee beans to imitate "the taste of Blue Mountain coffee" through dark roasting plus blending. In that case, it is definitely not a true Blue Mountain coffee product.The third type: the price is very low, so low that it is unreasonable
The extremely low price mentioned here refers to cases where it is unreasonably low. For example, although Front Street's Blue Mountain coffee is considered low among Blue Mountain beans, it is positioned so that after calculating the cost, there is still room for profit. But some Blue Mountain coffee selling for dozens of yuan per 1kg is unquestionably counterfeit. After all, if it were real, wouldn't the business owner lose more and more money the more he sells? Therefore, 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.
