Whenever I talk about Blue Mountain Coffee with friends who don't often drink coffee on the street, there is always such a saying: "Most of the Blue Mountain coffee in the Chinese market is not real, because 90% of the Blue Mountain coffee is bought by the Japanese market every year, and the remaining 10% goes to the European and American markets." Is this accurate? Qianjie will take a look at what is the real Blue Mountain coffee and whether there is a real Blue Mountain in China.
How did Blue Mountain coffee become "popular" all over the world?
As the name suggests, Blue Mountain coffee is produced from the Blue Mountains place, which is located in the island nation of the Caribbean – Jamaica. Culturally speaking, Jamaican coffee is a separate category called island coffee that distinguishes it from many inland coffee producing regions.
Before the sixties of the last century, Jamaican coffee beans were very popular in the coffee market at that time due to their high quality and excellent aroma. In the late 1960s, Jamaica was hit by the worst hurricane in history, destroying most of its coffee estates and bringing the coffee industry to a halt.
The sixties and seventies were a period of economic take-off in Japan, with very strong consumption and purchasing power, and Blue Mountain became the most popular coffee in the Japanese market after Mandheling. At this time, several ** companies from Japan joined forces to provide substantial loans to some of the best coffee plantations in the Blue Mountains, including the famous UCC Coffee Company (formerly Ueshima Coffee Co., Ltd.). In 1981, they directly purchased the shares of these estates, and were deeply involved in the production and sales of Blue Mountain coffee, which also obtained the right of first refusal, and almost monopolized the entire high-quality Blue Mountain coffee market.
In 1972, Jamaica** signed a 30-year contract with Japan to give Japan 90% of its production quota to Japan, and the remaining 10% of about 245 tonnes to be sold in other markets. As the saying goes, scarcity is expensive. The innate supply of Blue Mountain coffee is originally low, and the acquired market is also monopolized, and the demand is frantically marketed Amway, and the natural tide rises.
In fact, during the signing of the agreement with Japan, Blue Mountain coffee was not completely consumed locally, and they will sell some Blue Mountain coffee in the form of ** to other Asian countries. Coupled with the increased publicity efforts of the Japanese, many coffee people in neighboring countries have also begun to seek Blue Mountain coffee, such as Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Since 2000, the "Blue Mountains craze" has gradually begun to spread to China, so when we talk to our elders about coffee, they always think of the name of Blue Mountains first.
The saying that Blue Mountain coffee is less in the domestic market was true before 2008, but this is not the case after 08. In the 2008 global economic crisis, Jamaica tried to sell Blue Mountain coffee to more countries, and just as the offtake agreement with Japan expired, more Blue Mountain quotas were allocated to other countries. In this way, the long-term monopoly of the Japanese in the Blue Mountain market was broken, and buyers from all over the world were able to participate in the production and sales of Blue Mountain coffee, and our country's importers and roasters also participated in the Blue Mountain coffee market after that, and the opportunity to buy Blue Mountain in China increased a lot. In today's booming coffee culture, it is not difficult to drink a cup of Blue Mountain coffee.
Blue Mountain flavored beans ≠ Blue Mountain coffee
After the reform and opening up of the country, foreign materials poured in, including coffee. At that time, coffee was not as ubiquitous as it is now, and the prestige of Blue Mountain coffee was introduced to the country. In the early days, Blue Mountain coffee was very rare and expensive, and merchants used blended beans to spell out coffee close to the taste of Blue Mountain according to the flavor of Blue Mountain, and then a dark roast blend bean called "Blue Mountain Flavor" appeared on the market. Although it is named the Blue Mountain, it is actually far from the real Blue Mountain.
Although there are still many fake blue mountains on the market today, it does not mean that it is difficult to find the existence of real blue mountains. In fact, in April 2011, China reported direct imports of Blue Mountain coffee from Jamaica. At that time by Zhejiang dunn'On behalf of the "Hangzhou Coffee and Western Food Association", S River Import & Export Co., Ltd. purchased from Jamaica a total of 1000*70kg with a total amount of 2 million US dollars. Nowadays, Jamaica also attaches great importance to the Chinese market, and the list of many domestic authorized exporters can be found on the official website of CIB.
What are the credentials of authentic Blue Mountain Coffee?
As a consumer, we can use the handmade oak barrels that are used to transport the green beans of the Blue Mountains through the merchant. Jamaica is the only region in the world to use oak barrels as a vehicle for coffee transportation, and the barrels are available in three sizes: 70 kg, 30 kg and 15 kg. Compared with coarse sacks, oak barrels have the advantage of absorbing and releasing internal and external humidity, and insulate the aroma of coffee from flowing out, so that the coffee beans maintain a more stable moisture content and make the roast more stable. Later, the wooden barrel also became one of the symbols to identify authentic Blue Mountain coffee.
In addition, the producers and distributors who produce Blue Mountain coffee must be licensed by Jamaica** and authorized by the Jamaica National Coffee Board, and all Blue Mountain batches exported from the local area must be tested and certified by the Coffee Board and bear its label. Therefore, we can ask the merchant to show the relevant Blue Mountain certificate to identify whether it is a real Blue Mountain.
Front Street's Blue Mountain No. 1 coffee is produced by Clifton Estate and has a certificate of quality issued by the Jamaica Coffee Board, a certificate of authorized sales issued by the Blue Mountain coffee manufacturer, a Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee certificate of origin, and oak barrels containing Blue Mountain green beans are displayed in the East Mountain Pass store.
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