Best Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffees in 2023

Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee

The Blue Mountain coffees are as popular as the Ethiopian Yirgacheffe coffee beans. It is renowned for its high quality and exceptional flavors all over the world. Blue Mountain Jamaican coffee is grown on the blue mountain. Blue mountain coffee beans are hard to get and really expensive. They are careful produced to make it worth it for a refreshing coffee cup.

Almost all of the total produce of the Jamaican coffee beans is exported with japan taking a lions share of more than 80 percent. Jamaica is an island characterized by tropical weather with average sunshine and rainfall giving the coffee the best conditions to grow in.

Tasting and flavor of Blue Mountain Beans

The coffee beans have a mild and finished clean flavor. Acidity is very smooth but vibrant. The taste has very little bitterness and is sweet owing to the long ripening periods. Blue mountain coffee has a sweet and floral aroma with hints of herbs and nuts. Though Jamaica contributes to just 0.1 percent total worlds coffee, its clean and smooth taste makes it the high demanded after and priced coffee.

Must conditions for the Blue Mountain Coffees

It is a must to harvest the beans from only particular parishes namely; St. Andrew, Portland, St. Mary and St. Thomas.

Another requirement is that the elevation for growing these beans must vary from 3000 to 5500 feet above sea level to be considered as blue mountain coffee. At this attitude the coffees can grow with very minimal threat from pest and diseases and other plants are almost not able to yield here. The environment is harsh.

In the high altitudes the coffee is able to grow denser and harder limited by water amount. The cherry takes much time to ripen helping the bean to draw as much flavor from the cherry giving the coffee a special sweetening due to the developed complex sugars.

The harsh conditions make the coffee to be high end with a unique pleasant flavor. The mountains are characterized by cool and misty weather with rich volcanic soils. Double time is taken for ripening amounting to ten months of harvesting.

Harvesting of the Blue Mountain coffees

The Jamaicans got no problem in going the extra mile to produce the precious gold. Picking is done intensively through manual labor. After harvesting, through sorting out is done to identify the very best beans. This is not done using any machine but manually to remove all the undesired beans. One of the scrutinizing criteria is removing the too big or less beans. This is followed by removing coffee beans with certain defects like those produced by the coffee borers.

On top of this vigorous process the beans must be approved to qualify as mountain blue beans by the board of coffee industry in Jamaica (JCIB).

JCIB

This is a body that usually sets all the guidelines that governs the coffee industry plus conducts the inspection of both roasted and green coffee then does a coffee blind tasting test to depict the best coffee of all. They then do fill a form with about the coffee and make a decision whether or not particular coffee qualifies to be Blue Mountains coffee.

Roasting

The coffee from the Blue Mountains in Jamaica is either roast light, medium, dark and peaberry or French roast. Peaberry is the best for espresso brewing to get an awesome shot. The best way to brew it is using medium to at least medium dark to do it more justice and avoid destroying it with bitterness.

How to brew the Blue Mountain Coffee

For a hint it is always good to have freshly roasted and ground beans for your brew. The blend on shelf coffees has poor flavor and aroma and does not represent the original bean. The beans should also be stored in dry and cool environments in air tight packages and away from sunlight.

Things that you should ensure you have when preparing your brew are; kitchen scale, timer, conical burr grinder, French press and vacuum seal vessel. To best highlight the composite flavor of this precious coffee a drip an immersion is preferred. The common methods include pouring over method, automatic drip and the French press (espresso). A cold brew from the blue mountain coffee is also fantastic.

Guide on preparing the Jamaican mountain coffee as an espresso

Only grid the beans you can consume there and there. This is because ground coffee increase the surface area exposed to the air, specifically oxygen responsible for quick expiring of the beans aroma and flavor. Use a coffee grinder to grid through the Jamaican beans uniformly. Use a spoon or a kitchen scale to measure two spoonful or 1.1 oz. respectfully. The remaining beans should be stored in vacuumed containers.

Just to be sure that the flavor of your brew is not influenced by the water contents use filtered/distilled water otherwise tap water is still as good.

Use the thermometer to measure the water temperature just to be precise. The temperatures should be between 95 to 105 degrees Celsius.

Put the grounded coffee beans into a French press. When the water is ready put it into your French press. Set the press to 4 minutes and then serve your coffee.

Facts you should observe to get the best from Jamaican coffee

Owing to the very high prices of the commodity, people are looking to use this name to sell lesser coffees and make profit. However the blue seal on the special bean assist in identifying it which is also certified globally.

Avoid the blended coffees. Though the coffee beans from Jamaica have a blue mountain coffee protection seal given by JCIB, blends are not protected. If you buy one containing the special name it may only contain less or none Jamaican coffee.

The Jamaican coffee specifically blue mountain coffees is grown, harvested and packed in the country.

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