Blue Mountain Coffee: Touched by Heaven

The Jamaican mountains are home to one of the world's most prestigious coffee types--the Blue Mountain coffee. For those unfamiliar with the Jamaican topography, it is an island that is covered with a lot of mountain ranges. One of these regions is known as Blue Mountains.

Much has been written and said about how ideal it is to grow coffee beans in this region. The simple facts are that these are some of the tallest regions in the Caribbean, the weather is usually tepid to cool with plenty of rain and the soil is extremely fertile. Mother Nature has combined all these elements to provide a rich ground to cultivate this most sought-after of coffees which many have described as smooth and naturally sweet.

Blue Mountain coffee is both sacred and scarce in Jamaica. Sacred in the sense that only the Jamaican Coffee Industry Board reserves the right to grade and classify these types of beans. Being the overseer of the production and processing, the Jamaican Coffee Industry Board has come up with different classifications for their coffee. Class 1 graded beans are the most popular as it pertains to being consistent with its specified size and bearing only two percent defect.

As for its scarcity, the geographic locations where these types of coffee beans grow is somewhat limited. Also, Jamaica is a land that is often visited by natural calamities that sadly contributes to the destruction of these crops. These are primarily the reasons that you can expect to pay a bit more for this type of coffee plus the fact that each bean is hand picked.

The coffee that is exported from Jamaica are usually green beans, but only with respect to the beans being unroasted. Majority of the beans are actually bluish green and many attribute the bluish hue to the mist the covers most of these plantations. Truly, these beans touch the heavens.

When shopping for or buying Blue Mountain coffee, here are a couple of tips:

• Do not expect to find it in supermarkets. The price is much higher so it is not ideal for inventory. However specialty coffee stores do carry them as do many mail-order websites. It is recommended to buy them over the internet.



• Distinguish between 100% Blue Mountain as against Blue Mountain blend. This is one of the tricks some vendors try to pull to bring down the price of each bag. 100% Blue Mountain is exactly what it is, pure. The Blue Mountain blend meanwhile is a combination of very few parts Blue Mountain and majority common beans. There is no law dictating the percentage of pure Blue Mountain in blends, so the ratio might be as little as one percent. This aspect cannot be overemphasized because clever packaging and design can easily deceive the eyes.