According to The Coffee Industry Board of Jamaica 85% of all Blue Mountain goes to Japan 5% to the EU, 5% to the US and 5% to the rest of the world. The production of Blue Mountain is restricted to just 4 Parishes, Saint Andrew, Saint Thomas, Portland, and Saint Mary, plus it must be produced on land between 3,000 and 5,500 feet above sea level. The Coffee Industry Board of Jamaica have certified these Grade 1 Screen 17/18 beans. The Stoneleigh Estate began farming coffee towards the end of the 20th Century, started by St Clair Shirley it is still family run. More ‘Blue Mountain’ coffee is sold than is grown, as Jamaican ‘High Mountain’ or even just Jamaican coffee from elsewhere in the island can be illegally marketed as ‘Blue Mountain.’ It was in 1728 that Sir Nicholas Lawes the then Governor of Jamaica started coffee growing with plants from Martinique. Later Matthew Wallen, a Captain in the British Navy, sailed into Jamaica in 1746 and, soon after also started growing coffee in the Blue Mountains.
