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I don’t want to be hurtful, but I can say that Jamaica coffee is not the world’s best, and no serious coffee taster would ever attempt that argument. Yes, for a certain person it could be their own personal favorite because it reminds them of a beautiful place! But judging the cup by itself, without bias, at it’s best, no! It is a balanced, mild “island coffee” profile grown at moderate altitude.
Some of the faults arise in the details. If the coffee is picked when ripe, processed well, dried in good time, and rested in the right environment, it can reach that near-ideal of a pleasant balanced cup. We found in our experience that the post-harvest processingThe removal of the cherry and parchment from the coffee seed.: Coffee is either wet-processed (also called washed or wet-milled) or dry-processed (also called wild, natural or natural… is rarely done to those standards, that the humidity of the climate challenges the stability of the green bean, and it rarely realizes its potential in the cup.
On top of that, a lot of coffee sold as Jamaica Blue Mountain has, in the past, not truly been so. It’s from adjacent areas that are lower altitude, blended with such, or just other coffee altogether. Sadly, there’s incentive for this due to the huge price difference between “JBM” and nearly every other coffee in the world! But let’s respect the coffee for it’s history, and for what it can be at it’s best … not what some “bad actors” have done to it.
The Blue Mountain region is in the Eastern part of the island, and only coffee grown within can be called JBMJBM is short for Jamaica Blue Mountain, which is both a trade name for certain Jamaica coffee, and a Typica cultivar. As a cultivar, it is one of…. JamaicaJamaica coffee can be excellent mild, lush coffee… sometimes. Like Kona and Puerto Rican coffee, it is soft, mild, clean and well balanced when it is good.: Ah… High Mountain refers to coffee grown outside the true region. Wallenford (recently sold after a period in receivership) and Mavis Bank are the two most prominent names, Old Tavern is a third. Moy Hall is a co-op created from one of the older farms, and one of the 4 certified sources along with the above-mentioned in 1951. But these are not farms, they are coffee mills that purchase coffee from the surround JBM small farms and mills it. I am concerned that Wallenford is milled at sea-level in Kingston –not a good practice (of course, if the cup is good i will buy it regardless of my biases).
Mavis Bank is milled and stored at altitude. They have really improved the output with better quality preparationPreparation refers to the dry-milling steps of preparing coffee for export: hulling, grading, classifying, sorting.: Preparation refers to the dry-milling steps of preparing coffee for export: hulling, grading,…. But remember, the cup is mild, mild, mild. If you are new to roasting and determined to roast JBM, try the smallest amount in an order, along with a really good Central (a Guatemalan for example), a really good EthiopiaEthiopia, formerly known as Abyssinia, or a coffee cultivar: Ethiopia, or more specifically the Empire under Haile Selassie, was known as Abyssinia. The name is Latin, derived from… Yirgacheffe, a really good auction lot KenyaKenya is the East African powerhouse of the coffee world. Both in the cup, and the way they run their trade, everything is topnotch.: Kenya is the East…, a premium small-farm Colombian. In the larger scheme of things, a very good JBM cups simply as a clean, mild cup, soft but uninspiring next to these muscular coffees with pronounced cup character.
Here are some older roasting tips I had noted for Jamaican Coffee: Like other island origins, even the best, highest-grown Jamaican coffees lack the very high elevations of an originIn coffee talk, it refers to a coffee-producing region or country; such as, “I was just at origin.” Of course “Origin” for most product we use is not… such as Kenya or GuatemalaGuatemalan coffee is considered a top quality coffee producer in Central America. Due to our proximity to Guatemala, some of the nicest coffees from this origin come to… or ColombiaColombian coffee is highly marketed and widely available in the US. They have been largely successful at equating the name Colombian Coffee with “Good” Coffee. This is half-true….. This leads to a lower bean densityThe density of a coffee bean is often taken as a sign of quality, as a more dense bean will roast more with a better dynamic. The density… in the cell structure, and a different roast treatment. You should roast this coffee with a lower initial temperature during the warmup stage, until the coffee is yellow/light-brown in color. Our drum roasters like the BehmorA popular electric drum roaster designed for home use, with variable batch sizes (from 1/4 pound to 1 pound) and a smoke-reduction system. It has been modified and… or HotTopA home drum roaster with a 9oz capacity, adjustable heat and airflow profiling, and an external cooling tray.: A home drum roaster with a 9oz capacity, adjustable heat… have fairly low initial temperatures already. You can really kill JBM with a high initial temperature and a short roast time. You should use an initial environment temperatureThe temperature of the roasting environment determines the specific types of chemical reactions that occur. There is a window of temperatures that produce favorable reactions for the ideal… of less than 350 F, and gently bring in up after 4 minutes or so, shooting for a total roast time of no less than 11 minutes. On the air roast side, an air popper or the Freshroast is a bit fast, so use 20% less coffee to allow more air flow and an even warm-up of the coffee through the yellowing stages.
We don’t often offer it, but see if we have of Jamaican Coffee at Sweet Maria’s.
Country Profiles:
The history of coffee in Jamaica is epic. In 1728, Sir Nicholas Lawes, then Governor of Jamaica, imported coffee into Jamaica from Martinique. The country was ideal for this cultivation and nine years after its introduction 83,000 lbs. of coffee was exported. Between 1728 and 1768, the coffee industry developed largely in the foothills of St. Andrew, but gradually the cultivation extended into the Blue Mountains. Since then, the industry has experienced many rises and falls, with some farmers abandoning coffee for livestock and other crops. In order to save the industry, legislation was passed in 1891 “to provide instructions in the art of cultivation and curing coffee by sending to certain districts, competent instructors.” Efforts were made to increase the production of coffee and to establish a Central Coffee Work for processing and grading. This effort to improve quality, however, was not very successful. Until 1943 it was unacceptable to the Canadian market, which at the time was the largest buyer of Jamaican coffee. In 1944 the government established a Central Coffee Clearing House where all coffee for export had to be delivered to the Clearing House where it was cleaned and graded. Improvement in the quality of Jamaica’s coffee export was underway. In June 1950 the Coffee Industry Board was established to officially raise and maintain the quality of coffee exported.
We don’t often offer it, but see if we have of Jamaican Coffee at Sweet Maria’s.
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