Adventures In Coffee - The Rise and Fall of Jamaican Blue Mountain

The Rise and Fall of Jamaican Blue Mountain

06/15/22 • 40 min

Jools' investigation into this elusive coffee will leave your taste buds clamouring for the sweet and fruity notes of Blue Mountain Coffee...
When was the last time you encountered Jamaican coffee in your favourite cafe? Chances are, unless you frequent the high-end establishments of Mayfair (or happen to be royalty), the answer may well be "never."
In this special episode, Jools takes Scott on a poignant personal journey into the land of her paternal heritage while casting light on Jamaican coffee's fascinating and disturbing past.
Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee was once considered the cream of the coffee crop, but plummeting production beneath an ominous veil of secrecy has left the country's coffee industry in crisis.
Along the way, the author of "The Mother of Us All", Karla Gottlieb, paints a picture of a paradise island invaded by colonialists and the ingenious fightback by a cunning queen. Smith's Coffee's Colin Smith explains the historical quirks that have led to most Jamaican coffee being sold to Japan.
Dominic Wyndham-Gittens of Wyndhams Coffee Roasters in Barbados points the finger at the Jamaican coffee industry's painful decline.
And Marshalee Valentine, President of JAWiC, offers a glimpse of hope for some green shoots of recovery.
Content Warning: This episode contains mentions/descriptions of slavery and violence against enslaved people that can be disturbing or triggering.
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Lisa Hanna’s article on the state of the Jamaican coffee industry: https://bit.ly/39sCsSb
Video of a Jamaican coffee farmer discussing the state of the industry : https://bit.ly/3NODsPF
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Find your perfect roast with the Ikawa Home: https://bit.ly/3IdYVPc
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Previous Episode

Are Wine Making Techniques the Future of Coffee?

Next time you set about making your morning coffee, take a moment to peruse the info on your bag of beans. What do you notice? The variety of beans? Flavour notes? Technical details on where the coffee was grown?
They're not so different from the sort of blurb you might find on the back of a wine bottle in many ways. And that’s intentional. Specialty coffee has taken a lot from the world of wine.
But could the increasing overlaps be a problem for coffee farmers — or even dangerous?
In this episode, Scott and Jools join forces with coffee processing specialist and former winemaker Lucia Solis from the Making Coffee podcast to dive deeper into where our coffee comes from and what (if anything) wine's got to do with it.
Lucia talks to coffee producer Karla Boza from the Finca San Antonio Amatepec coffee farm in El Salvador and vintner Todd Kohn from the Wayfarer Vineyard in California to shed some light on the techniques behind picking, transporting and processing their precious produce.
Take a sip on this (soon-to-be-a-good) vintage episode to pique your curiosity about how coffee and wine are made, and why it matters.
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Learn more about coffee and wine growing with Lucia Solis on her Making Coffee podcast: https://bit.ly/3z7dJ0j
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Find your perfect roast with the Ikawa Home: https://bit.ly/3IdYVPc
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Enjoy the Doña Aracelly Roble’s coffee from Girls Who Grind: https://bit.ly/3z6JmXO
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Next Episode

Coffee’s Cutting Edge: Innovations at Origin

Once upon a time, the simple pleasures of a homemade cup of coffee would have been limited to those in Ethiopia's cool, wet mountain forest regions. Today, a multi-billion dollar global industry means we can sip on an espresso virtually anywhere in the world. But what about coffee's future?
Scott, Jools and James embark on a mission into the unknown to each reveal an element of the magical and evolving world of coffee growing. The team (or most of them...) savour a specially brewed coffee alongside each story, all prepared on the Siemens EQ700 fully automatic espresso machine.
Scott talks genetics with World Coffee Research's Hanna Neuschwander as he takes us to the frontline of the battle to save coffee from climate change.
James enlists the help of coffee processing specialist and fellow podcaster Lucia Solis to decipher what the latest bamboozling terms on our coffee bags actually mean.
And Jools is joined by Jessy Luo as she whisks us away to one of the world's newest coffee-growing regions in a rather unexpected corner of the globe.
What do F1 and Dolly the Sheep have to do with the future of coffee? Click 'download' to find out!
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Discover more about coffee genetics at World Coffee Research: https://bit.ly/39RuiTO
Learn more about coffee and wine growing with Lucia Solis on her Making Coffee podcast: https://bit.ly/3z7dJ0j
Find Jessy Luo, Chinese coffee specialist, on the interwebs: https://bit.ly/39TcUxI
Take a screenshot and tell your friends about Adventures in Coffee!
Tag our Instagram handles:
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Scott Bentley / Caffeine Magazine: https://bit.ly/3oijQ91