Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee Cultivar

The Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee cultivar is from the Blue Mountains region of Jamaica. The Blue Mountains form the longest mountain range in Jamaica. They include the island’s highest point, Blue Mountain Peak, at 2256 m (7402 ft). From the summit, accessible via a walking track, both the North and South coasts of the island can be seen. On a clear day, the outline of the island Cuba, 210 km (130 mi) away, can also be seen.Due to its popularity, it fetches a high price in the market. The Blue Mountain region is in the Eastern part of the island, and only coffee grown within can be called JBM. Jamaica High Mountain refers to coffee grown outside the true region.

Jamaican Blue Mountains history

In past years, when Jamaica’s economy was dominated by plantation slavery, some slaves *Maroons were able to escape to the Blue Mountains and live independently. Maroon communities emerged in many places in the Caribbean (St Vincent and Dominica for example), but none were seen as such a great threat to the British as the Jamaican Maroons. A British governor signed a treaty promising the Maroons 2500 acres (10 km²) in two locations, because they presented a threat to the British. Also, some Maroons kept their freedom by agreeing to capture runaway slaves. They were paid two dollars for each slave returned. Beginning in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, Jamaican Maroons fought British colonists to a draw and eventually signed treaties in the 18th century that effectively freed them over 50 years before the abolition of the slave trade in 1807. To this day, the Jamaican Maroons are to a significant extent autonomous and separate from Jamaican society. The physical isolation used to their advantage by their ancestors has today led to their communities remaining amongst the most inaccessible on the island. In their largest town, Accompong, in the parish of St. Elizabeth, the Leeward Maroons still possess a vibrant community of about 600. Tours of the village are offered to foreigners and a large festival is put on every January 6 to commemorate the signing of the peace treaty with the British after the First Maroon War. Today the famous Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee is cultivated between 2000 and 5000 feet above sea level, while higher slopes are preserved as forest. Hagley Gap and Mavis Bank are farming communities located on Blue Mountain with Hagley Gap being closest to Blue Mountain Peak. Both towns rely upon the area’s rich, fertile soils for growing Blue Mountain Coffee.

*Maroons (from the word marronage or American/Spanish cimarrón: “fugitive, runaway”, lit. “living on mountaintops”; from Spanish cima: “top, summit”) were runaway slaves in the West Indies, Central America, South America, and North America, who formed independent settlements together. The same designation has also become a derivation for the verb marooning.

Jamaica’s Blue Mountains climate

The island’s average rainfall, which is much greater in the mountain areas facing the north and east, is 1,960 millimetres (77.2 in) per year. Where the higher elevations of the Blue Mountains catch the rain from the moisture-laden winds, rainfall exceeds 5,080 millimetres (200 in) per year with some areas have totals of over 7,620 millimetres (300 in). This climatic diversity has enabled the high rainfall that feeds the lush vegetation, which includes towering trees and over 500 species of flowering plants, of which half are found nowhere else on earth.

There is also the Blue Mountain Kenya cultivar, sourced from East Africa and trialled in a list of most promising Arabica coffee cultivars evaluated for North Queensland and northern New South Wales by The Australian Coffee Research and Development Team, it is described as a “very tall and open” arabica cultivar.

Tips for Roasting Jamaican Coffee

As with other island origins even the best, highest-grown Jamaican coffee lacks the very high elevations of an origin such as Kenya. This leads to a lower bean density in the cell structure and subsequently a different roast treatment. You should roast this coffee with a lower initial temperature during the warmup stage, until the coffee reaches yellow/light-brown in color. Drum roasters like the HotTop have fairly low initial temperatures already. If roasting coffee in a BBQ roaster, be very careful of your roaster settings! You can really kill Jamaican Blue Mountain (JBM) with a high initial temperature and a short roast time. You should use an initial environment temperature of less than 176 C (350 F), and gently bring in up after 4 minutes or so, shooting for a total roast time of no less than 11 minutes or so. On the air roast side, 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. In an i-Roast try 165 C (330 F) for 2 min, 193 C (380 F) for 3 min and 232 C (450 F) for 4.5 min.

Source

Sweet Marias, Australian Coffee Research and Development Team