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Why are Blue Mountain Coffee beans so expensive? does Blue Mountain Coffee taste good?

Published: 2025-12-03 Author: World Gafei

Last Updated: 2025/12/03, You may not have had coffee, but you must have heard of Blue Mountain! Before the concept of boutique coffee came out, the word "Blue Mountain Coffee" was synonymous with high-quality, best and most expensive coffee. When you taste it in its fame, you will find it very comfortable, but it doesn't seem to be as rumored as it is.

You may not have had coffee, but you must have heard of Blue Mountain! Before the concept of boutique coffee came out, the word "Blue Mountain Coffee" was synonymous with high-quality, best and most expensive coffee.

When you taste it to its fame, you will find it very comfortable, but it does not seem to be as vivid as rumored, just a cup of ordinary high-quality coffee. In terms of flavor, it is not outstanding; in terms of taste, it does not stand out from the crowd. Is its taste worthy of its fame and price?

There is really nothing special about Blue Mountain Coffee today. But if you look back at its history of fame, you will find that its fame is well-deserved.

Jamaica is an island country with an area of less than 11000 square kilometers, while the Blue Mountains are located in the east of the island. Coffee was introduced into the Blue Mountains as early as 1728. Blue Mountain Coffee really became the "King of Coffee" since the 1950s.

In 1952, the Jamaica Coffee Industry Management Office, established four years ago, was upgraded to the Jamaica Coffee Industry Committee (CIB), which is mainly responsible for setting management standards and supervising the quality of Jamaican coffee production. The area where coffee can be grown in Jamaica is small, so if you want to develop the coffee industry, you can only develop in the direction of high-quality products.

After the establishment of CIB, the coffee beans in the blue mountain coffee growing area were graded, and the items were evaluated, including bean size, color, evenness, defect rate, water content, and cup score.

In the cup test, CIB found that the flavor and taste of coffee beans produced in some areas of the Blue Mountains are significantly higher than those in others. The coffee is not only bitter, but also sour and sweet, which is well balanced and tastes strong and clean. So CIB designated an area in the Blue Mountains, stipulating that only coffee produced in this area can be sold under the name Blue Mountain Coffee, while coffee outside the area can only be sold in the name of Alpine Coffee or Jamaican selection Coffee. (CIB also registered trademarks for Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee and Jamaican Alpine Coffee in 1985)

In Blue Mountain Coffee, it is also divided into No.1, No.2, No.3 and PB according to raw bean size and defect rate, in which we are familiar with No.1 (Blue Mountain No. 1) with a size of 17-18 mesh and a defect rate of less than 3%.

CIB's approach is similar to the concept of Specialty Coffee (boutique coffee / specialty coffee) put forward by Erna Knustsen in 1974. In other words, CIB has achieved the standard of boutique coffee long before the concept of boutique coffee was proposed.

CIB is also the first organization in the world to use a cup meter to score coffee, and the scoring items in the cup test are dry fragrance, wet fragrance, acidity, flavor, alcohol thickness and cleanliness. This is more than 20 years earlier than the coffee cup scoring system of SCAA and COE.

In planting, the variety that Jamaica has been growing is iron pickup, and it has always adhered to water washing treatment, which was the most advanced treatment technology at that time, resulting in a lower defect rate and higher quality of coffee.

Therefore, the quality and flavor of Blue Mountain Coffee was the well-deserved king of coffee at that time. However, after all the producing countries began to pay attention to the quality of coffee production, the gap gradually narrowed.

What's the taste of coffee when it comes to coffee? Maybe some people can tell you all kinds of fruits and flowers, but they just don't say what the coffee tastes like. And the taste of Blue Mountain Coffee is precisely the most standard "coffee flavor". It is not like coffee to pursue flavor, but to maintain a rich, mellow and clean taste, sweet, sour and bitter balanced and comfortable taste.