Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee is grown on a single island yet more than 80% of it ships to one country, Japan. Coffee reached Jamaica in 1728, and the Blue Mountain bean is Typica, an arabica lineage from the highlands of southwestern Ethiopia. The Blue Mountains, between Kingston and Port Antonio, rise to 7,402 feet and are wrapped in a cool mist that gives them their name. That mist, heavy rain, and fast draining volcanic soil slow the cherries’ ripening, building denser beans with complex sugars and a famously mild, low bitterness cup.

To protect that profile, the Jamaica Agricultural Commodities Regulatory Authority limits the Blue Mountain mark to the highest elevations of four parishes: St. Andrew, St. Thomas, Portland, and St. Mary. The Japan connection dates to January 9, 1967, when a shipment carrying 60% of that year’s harvest left Kingston bound for Japan, meeting a palate shaped by delicate teas and the kissaten coffee shop boom. Japan later made January 9 Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee Day, and Jamaica launched its own coffee festival in the mountain settlement of Newcastle.

• Coffee grown between 1,500 and 3,000 feet in the same parishes is sold as Jamaica High Mountain, and lower beans as Jamaica Supreme or Low Mountain.
• Beans are graded one, two, and three by size and defects, with round single seed peaberries as their own prized class.
• The Blue Mountain name is a geographical indication protected in the United States, the European Union, and the UK, much like Champagne.
• The Blue Mountain Coffee Day motion came from the Association of Japanese Importers of Jamaican Coffee in December 2018, and celebrations began in 2019.
• After a 2020 cancellation and a virtual 2021 edition, the festival returned in 2022 as a month long event with farmer workshops and buyer matchmaking.