Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee: Fast Facts and Figures

jamaican blue mountain coffee, jamaican coffee, specialty coffee

Of all the world’s most prestigious and celebrated gourmet coffees, few are quite as prestigious as Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee. Likewise, you won’t find many that are more expensive or hard to come across than this exquisite Jamaican coffee.

But what is it about Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee that makes it such a significant cut above the rest? When considering the towering costs of a bag of authentic Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee beans, how does this legendary specialty coffee justify its price?

For one thing, Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee can only be produced in a tiny mountainous area with Kingston to the South and Port Antonio to the North.  Jamaica’s Blue Mountains are the highest mountains in the Caribbean and the only place in the world Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee can be produced.

Suffice to say, this adds up to relatively difficult working conditions and the impossibility of significant expansion. Most of the farms producing Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee today follow the same processes and principles as they did at their origins - some having been in business for more than 200 years.

So already, you begin to get an idea as to why this celebrated Jamaican coffee isn’t just any quality coffee. It’s a rare, demanding and sought-after commodity, which justifies every penny of its price and more.

Here are a few more fast facts and figures to explain why:

  • Every single Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffeebean is picked by hand
  • Each bean is then painstakingly and individually inspected by hand
  • Blue Mountain Coffee trees take twice as long to mature
  • They are also far more demanding and difficult to grow
  • Jamaica’s total annual coffee output is a mere 14 million lbs
  • 80% of all Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee goes direct to Japan
  • Every bean is rested for eight weeks in controlled conditions
  • 100% natural sun-drying processes prepare the beans
  • Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee beans must have a precise 11.5% moisture content to pass inspection
  • Senior farmers with generations of experience oversee the process

From start to finish, very little machinery and technology is used to cultivate and process Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee. In fact, there’s almost no involvement of machinery whatsoever. Even the colour sorters used to inspect coffee beans are deemed insufficiently accurate - teams of skilled workers inspect the quality of each and every bean by hand.

It’s only when each bean has passed through an intensive quality control process that it is considered ready to ship. Of all the Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee grown each year, a surprising proportion doesn’t make the cut. Instead, it is retained for domestic use, or sold as more generic Jamaican coffee without the Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee moniker.

So as far as the price is concerned, every Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee bean is worth every penny and more. When you think about the time-consuming and painstaking process that’s brought it to your home in the first place, it really is a small price to pay!

To order Jamaican Blue Mountain as green coffee beans (i.e. unroasted coffee beans / raw coffee beans for home roasting), roasted whole bean coffee, roasted ground coffee, Nespresso compatible pods ®*, or coffee pods compatible with Keurig K Cup coffee makers (incl. Keurig 2.0 models)**, click here and visit Hayman’s online store – we offer free worldwide shipping!

 

 

* Nespresso® is a registered trademark of Société des Produits Nestlé S.A., unrelated to Hayman®. Our espresso pods are not created or sold by Nespresso®.

** Keurig and K-Cup are registered trademarks of Keurig Green Mountain, Inc. unrelated to Hayman®. Our pods are not created or sold by Keurig®.