For bookings email reservations@moonjamaica.com 

Moon Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee Tour  Express:   A 45‐minute visit with Dorothy Twyman, matriarch of the Twyman Estate, located just past Hardwar Gap, at the coffee farm house where you will be shown how to select, roast and savor the country’s finest beans. A cup of the house roast is sampled accompanied by a bite to eat on the Twymans’ porch overlooking their vast estate.  Lunch at either EITs Café, Belcour Lodge or Crystal Edge  Duration: 9 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.   Tour Rates: USD 35/adult, USD 15/child under 12 Transport: USD 150 for up to thee (3) passengers; add USD 10 for each additional adult, USD 5 per child  Half‐day:  A 45‐minute visit with Dorothy Twyman, matriarch of the Twyman Estate just past Hardwar Gap, at the coffee farm house where you are shown the processing and roasting of the coffee and sample a cup with accompanying bite.  A 45‐minute visit to Clifton Mount Coffee Estate with a tour of the processing facility and walk through the fields.  Lunch at either EITs Café, Belcour Lodge or Crystal Edge  Time: 9 a.m. – 2 p.m.  Tour Rates: USD 50/adult, USD 30/child under 12 Transport USD 200 for up to three (3) passengers; add USD 15 for each additional adult, USD 5 per child   Full‐day:  A 45‐minute visit with Dorothy Twyman, matriarch of the Twyman Estate just past Hardwar Gap, at the coffee farm house where you are shown the processing and roasting of the coffee and sample a cup with accompanying bite.  A 45‐minute visit to Clifton Mount Coffee Estate with a tour of the processing facility and walk through the fields.  Lunch at either EITs Café, Belcour Lodge or Crystal Edge  A 45‐minute tour of Mavis Bank Coffee Factory  Duration: 9 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.  Tour Rates: USD 60/adult, USD 40/child under 12 Transport: USD 230 for up to 3 adults; add USD 20 per each additional adult, USD 10 per child  

DECEMBER 2011 34 GO MAGAZINE

JAMAICAN JOE

ON THE TOWN: MONTEGO BAY, JAMAICA

Coff ee addicts, welcome to paradise—Jamaica abounds with coff ee plantations that produce one of the world’s most sought-

after varieties of beans. Blue Mountain Coff ee, Jamaica’s most famous export, is potent, full of fl avor, medium bodied and aromatic, lacking the bitterness associ-ated with many other strong coff ees from around the globe. At $30 to $40 a pound, it’s more expensive than your average roast (Dunkin’ Donuts, which America allegedly runs on, costs just $8).

The Blue Mountain Range is ideal for coff ee growing, due to its trifecta of textured soil, heavy rainfall and misty coolness. According to local coff ee farm-ers, this allows the coff ee berries to mature very slowly, resulting in the smooth fl avor and medium body of the fi nal product. Most of the plantations here are beautiful to see and open to the public.

What better way, then, to gain an appreciation for the island’s fl ourishing coff ee industry than by touring its most iconic producers in search of the best bean? That’s exactly what I did, touring the Old Tavern Estate, Clifton Mount and

Mavis Bank Coff ee Factory in a buzz-worthy hunt for the champ.

My fi rst stop is at the 140-acre Old Tavern Estate, where mother-and-son team Dorothy and David Twyman grow and roast medium, medium-dark, dark and peaberry (a bean that results when one half of the coff ee cherry fails to develop, giving it a sweeter taste than fully developed beans) coff ee.

David greets me by the road for the short walk up to his family home, which sits atop a steep embankment from which we can, in one sweep, survey the whole estate. Dorothy is there, waiting to take my order. Of course, I request the signature cup, a smooth medium roast, fi nely ground. It’s a light, medium-bodied brew, and I miss neither sugar nor milk as I savor it. A macaroon, a slice of buttered spiced bun and a few gulps later, and I’m on my way, a pound of roasted beans in hand.

Next, I head for Clifton Mount, a 25-minute drive through Hardwar Gap, where I turn up the winding road towards Catherine’s Peak. Moments later I face the 85-acre estate’s crisp, white-tiled pulping facility, where I’m met by Jason Sharp, who manages the roasting side of the business. His hilltop home—a fi ne example of colonial Jamaican architec-ture with its boxed Louvre windows, steep wood-shingled roof and brick chimney—overlooks rolling hillsides that are covered in meticulously kept coff ee groves. Sharp, who runs Jamaica’s answer to Starbucks—Café Blue—leads me to the pulping plant. This state-of-the-art facility processes beans from Clifton Mount and 10 contiguous farms, then sells a choice medium roast blend under the label Coff ee Traders. I witness each stage of the process—washing, pulping, fermenting, hulling, separating by grade and drying (the beans are roasted in Kingston).

A caffeine-addicted writer tests Jamaica’s finest coffees to find the island’s best black gold.

For the freshest morning cuppa joe you’ll ever taste, sleep over at Blue Mountain coffee farms.Shoestring travelers will find basic, comfortable beds at Prince Valley Guesthouse (princevalleyguest-house.com; $30). Heritage Gardens (heritagegardensjamaica.com ; $100) of Cold Spring offers a rustic cottage on a small estate rich in history, while Strawberry Hill (islandoutpost.com/strawberry_hill; $385-515) is the most luxurious accommodation option in the Blue Mountains, and the only hotel selling its own brand of roasted beans. In Mavis Bank, Forres Park (forrespark.com; $75-220) offers a range of amenities for a range of budgets, while Lime Tree Farm (limetreefarm.com ; $130 per person) boasts hilltop comfort and the best view of Blue Mountain Peak from its bedroom windows.

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DECEMBER 2011 35 GO MAGAZINE

BY OLIVER HILL

Belly full after a hearty lunch at nearby Belcour Lodge, I’m on my way to meet Howard Findlater, Chief Operating Offi cer at Mavis Bank Coff ee Factory. MBCF is a coff ee processing plant rather than an estate, with monstrous machinery drying, pulping, separating, roasting and packag-ing. It sources beans from more than 6,000 small local farmers, who bring their crop to 90 depots located around the Blue Mountains. The company’s brand, Jablum, is among the strongest in the market for roast product, as are the green beans it

produces, shipped worldwide in emblem-atic wooden barrels. Findlater gives me a tour of the entire process, from the berries being cleaned all the way to packaging.

A  few days later, Coff ee Industry Board Quality Assurance Manager Hervin Willis welcomes me at the regula-

tor’s lab where samples of all green beans awaiting export are tested for consistency of color, size and taste. Its strict guidelines and quality control procedures have preserved the Jamaica Blue Mountain Coff ee brand and made it into one of the country’s strongest trademarks.

A typical cupping is soon underway, with Willis and Quality Assurance Inspec-tor Marsha Valentine sampling roasted beans from the three places I visited.

To begin the cupping, six ounces of 98-degree water are poured directly on nine grams of ground beans in three cups per sample. Next, the aroma is assessed by sniffi ng each cup closely. Then, the froth is removed and the coff ee is slurped to the back of the throat and spit out in what is a sober, formalized process. Faults are sought by assessing consistency between the three cups in terms of acidity, fra-grance, body, roast and aftertaste, which are all graded.

All three samples are deemed worthy of the Jamaica Blue Mountain Coff ee clas-sifi cation, and, as the grading comes to a close, Clifton Mount coff ee emerges as the clear favorite, eliciting gut-tural sounds of enjoyment from Willis, who praises the fl oral notes resulting from the carefully managed fermentation of the beans (in the end, he would take the leftover beans home). The Mavis Bank medium roast was close behind, while the Twyman Estate beans were noted to have been roasted on the light side, which the experts said prevented full fl avor from emerging, but were nonetheless deemed fi rst-class Blue Mountain Coff ee.

As I now understand, a Blue Mountain cuppa joe is world-famous for a reason—it assures quality and consistency. Paying that little extra bit is well worth it—I know I’ll be buzzing about it for a while.

Clockwise from left: Roasting beans at Old Tavern Estate; Blue Mountain coffee berries; Valentine sniffs coffee at the Coffee Industry Board Quality Assurance cupping; Clifton Mount’s plantation

IF YOU GOOld Tavern EstateGreen Hills, Portland; +1-876-924-2785, oldtaverncoffee.com

Café BlueRose Hall, Rose Hall Rd, Montego Bay; +1-876-953-4646 ; jamaicacafeblue.com

Clifton MountNewcastle, St. Andrew

Belcour LodgeMaryland District, Upper St. Andrew; +1-876-927-2448; belcourpreserves.com

Mavis Bank Coffee FactoryMavis Bank, +1-876-977-8528; jablumcoffee.com

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