Thread: Kona
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Old 11-25-2008, 06:00 AM   #9
Mister Moo
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Default Re: Kona

Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnnyFlake View Post
...I/we have tried ... even more Kona Blends, and to put it simply, they all suck! I am not positive of the percentage, but I believe the laws involved only require that the mixer contain a minimum of 10% of Kona Bean for it to be called a Kona Blend. That's ridiculous!
Kona blend is about as phoney as a three-dollar bill. The first real 100% Kona I had was in Hawaii and, once tasted - never forgotten. No blend I ever tried has anything in common with Kona.

Tuesday morning - the roast is developing. Nuttiness is breaking out everywhere and the flavor is expanding! Keeping Ghostrider philosophy up front I should have peaking Kona for everyone, Thursday-Sunday.

Speaking of phoney as a three-dollar bill, how does every website, coffeeshop and 2-out-of-three grocerystores in America have bags of Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee for sale? And what about the rest of the world? Where does it all come from? JBM is one of those things you ought not to buy unless you personally know the grower or the importer. The initials JBM got yuppy-ized a dozen years ago and now they're like a dirty tattoo on the industy (in my opinion). I'd guess there is way more Kona than JBM grown annually and finding real, 100% Kona out here in the US economy takes a little effort - and just because you find the real deal doesn't necessarily mean the crop was worth drinking.

An annual harvest of only 900 tonnes:
The area on which Blue Mountain can be grown under regulated conditions is limited to 6,000 hectares. Accordingly the harvest is small, and picking is by hand exclusively. Only around 900 tonnes of Blue Mountain Coffee are harvested each year, less than 0.1 per cent of Colombia’s coffee production. It is only once the experts of the Coffee Industry Board of Jamaica (CIB) have certifi ed the select green coffee that it is exported in wooden barrels. Up to 80 per cent of the harvest goes to the Japanese market, where passionate coffee connoisseurs are happy to pay up to USD 10 and more for a cup. The coffee’s intense, clear, almost nutty taste makes it a unique experience. Britain’s Royal Family has savoured this rand cru coffee since the colonial period. And anyone who has read Ian Fleming’s 007 novels knows that the eponymous hero drinks only Blue Mountain Coffee (the author himself lived on Jamaica for many years).
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