Jamaican coffee culture

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Mountain coffee is produced in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica and is known worldwide for its unique quality. Blue Mountains is located in the eastern part of Jamaica Island. Whenever the weather is clear, the brilliant sunshine shines on the Caribbean Sea. The mountains on the island seem to be covered with a layer of pale blue fog due to the refraction of sea water."Blue Mountains" is therefore named.

Blue Mountain has fertile volcanic soil, rainy all year round, fresh air, large temperature difference between day and night, very suitable for the growth of coffee trees. However, only coffee grown in the Blue Mountain region above 1800 meters above sea level can be counted as authentic Blue Mountain coffee.

It is said that as early as 1725, Sir Nicholas Laws, a Frenchman, brought the first coffee trees from Martinique to Jamaica and planted them in the St Andrew's area of the Blue Mountains. Later, among the refugees from Haiti were coffee farmers who settled in the Blue Mountains and brought coffee growing skills there. Over time, St. Andrew's became one of the top three growing regions for Blue Mountain coffee (the other two being Portland and St. Thomas). Slavery was abolished in Jamaica in 1838 and freed slaves were allowed to farm their own land. Freed slaves moved to the mountains to grow coffee and export it to England. By the 1930s, coffee production in Jamaica peaked at 15,000 tons per year.

By the middle of the last century, however, the quality of Blue Mountain coffee had declined and foreign buyers refused to renew contracts. The Jamaica government has set up the Coffee Industry Council to save the fate of premium coffee. By 1969, Japan began to invest heavily in Jamaica coffee growers and was willing to pay a deposit for Blue Mountain coffee, and the yield and processing quality of Blue Mountain coffee were gradually restored. Because of this, 90% of Blue Mountain coffee is shipped to Japan every year, and other countries can only bid for the remaining 10%, which is about 3500 barrels (70 kg per barrel) of Blue Mountain coffee.

The cultivation and processing of premium blue mountain coffee is very exquisite, each step of which has undergone strict quality management by Jamaica Coffee Industry Bureau. Seedling, fertilizer, harvesting, cleaning, baking, packaging, etc. are all carried out in strict accordance with relevant regulations. Only through the standard identification, in order to finally obtain the Jamaica Coffee Board issued by the "Blue Mountain Coffee" inspection certificate. The caffeine content of this coffee is very low, less than half of other coffees, its taste contains all the advantages of coffee, fragrant taste, smooth taste, coffee unique alcohol, sweet, sour, bitter perfect blend, and long aftertaste.

Blue Mountain coffee is shipped in barrels, and Jamaica is the last country to still use this traditional packaging method. Because Jamaica coffee production is already small, only about 40 thousand bags (60 kilograms per bag) per year, so the best blue mountain coffee has become particularly valuable.