AS A little girl, I always had a passion for African history which led me to an extensive study of the lives of slaves living in the various Caribbean Islands. I was always somewhat intrigued by Jamaica’s African history and the stories of the Blue Mountains of the island. As history has it, the slaves took the mountains as an escape route from their inhumane treatment on the plantations, and it became their home, with the establishment of maroon settlements. I always wondered how the slaves made it into the Blue Mountains and how they survived in such rugged and undeveloped terrain. While I may never know, my first visit to the Blue Mountains of Jamaica was nothing that I expected.
In fact, it was my first visit to any mountain at all, since the mountains in Guyana are all located in the hinterland region, which is a bit out of reach. How fortunate it is for the Jamaicans to readily be able to experience such beautiful creations of green natural towers which scale to the beam of the sun, giving the mist of the atmosphere a standing ovation all day long. It was indeed an intriguing and fascinating experience for me. When I was informed of my visit to the mountains, I thought it was going to be an up close look from its base and maybe an attempt to climb; how silly I was. What was more intriguing to me as I tried to get my imagination intact, was that I was actually driving to its peak.
The winding road gave me the opportunity to take in every moment as we went up. While I became a little nauseated at times, this lasted only a few minutes as the ambiance, the breath-taking scenery and the picturesque scenes of Kingston, Jamaica nestled comfortably below us was all the medicine I needed. It was a sight to die for! The scenery was like a moment of therapy, a stilt in time from all of the mundane things of life. As the van comfortably trotted every foot of the Blue Mountains, the temperature became cooler and cooler, and for a while, I forgot I was actually on a Caribbean island. With no jacket, I faced the consequences, but the excitement of just experiencing something I read about for years, warmed my freezing body.

The peak, and all its glory

After an hour of winding up the Blue Mountains, we finally reached our destination, which was a little cottage on the Old Tavern Coffee Estate, at Green Hills, Portland. It was the first coffee plantation on Blue Mountains. It was as if I was sitting in a plane with its window wide open staring with my naked eyes into literal clouds and mists, dancing joyfully around the mountain’s peaks. Not even my camera lens could capture its true majesty. I guessed that while the slaves may have found it hard to build their lives in the mountains, the clean air and the beautiful ambiance was enough for them to not return to the flats of Kingston.
At the plantation cottage, the view of the coffee farm a few feet down was the first time I saw coffee plants. In the cottage, were also the quality control room and the mills and so the aroma of fresh coffee coupled with the smell of the clean air and the cool temperature cumulated to create a fragrant paradise. A serving of freshly brewed coffee and a slice of bun and cheese made me want to make that little cottage my permanent home. Irene Pamsy, the employer at the cottage who has worked there for over 20 years seems quite comfortable in that little paradise. I found out that she also lives up the Mountains and walks two hours in the morning to get there and two hours in the afternoon to return home. A tiring task, this may seem, to many; but to her, the scenery and beauty of Blue Mountains make it seem like mere minutes.
She explained that the coffee beans are picked when ripe, and then hulled. Owner of the Estate, David Twyman then takes them to Kingston to dry, where it is left for six weeks before it is returned to the Estate for further processing. As the quality controller, Irene sorts the beans, takes out the defected ones and then places it to grind in the mills. The defected beans, however, are not discarded but are sold at a lesser price. The peaberry, which is a whole coffee bean, is sold at a higher price because it takes more time to sort. Irene has done almost every task on the Estate and so is able to multitask at any given time. She has planted, picked, sorted and packaged over the past 20 years.  She believes that the Old Tavern Coffee is the best of Blue Mountains and that Mr. Twyman’s coffee may be among the best in the world.
Mr. Twyman corroborated her belief with authority.  “It’s the Blue Mountains, the Blue Mountains of Jamaica that just make a remarkable coffee and this has been known for 250 years and they didn’t know then and we still really don’t know why the Blue Mountains make this good coffee,” he said. Twyman related that his parents started the estate in the 1960s as a weekend hobby and it then became their retirement project which he took over when his father died 10 years ago. “We became the first single estate of coffee in the Blue Mountains, what that means is that we don’t take any coffee outside of our boundaries and we process it completely from the seed all the way to the complete packaged product,”  he said.

The cottage was built in the 1930s along with the few others which served as a getaway for Kingston residents who wanted to escape the summer’s heat. Presently, Blue Mountains, which is 25 degrees cooler than Kingston, is entirely populated with several communities, an army base, restaurants and even a Bed and Breakfast. Blue Mountains coffee, however, remains the hallmark of the area as it is said to produce one of the best qualities of coffee in the world which cannot be replicated.
While Twyman has had some challenges over the past few years as a result of the climate- these include hurricanes and a disease called coffee rust fungus which took 50 percent of his production- he continues to brave the storm knowing that his product is highly demanded.  Currently, he is growing about 100 acres of Arabica coffee and sells about 10, 000 pounds on average though he hopes to produce more. He believes, however, in doing things the old fashioned way rather than to produce in mass quantity which may allow for a lower quality. “One thing I guarantee is the coffee you get from me is coffee grown on that spot and in that niche of climate and also processed by my method. He described his Blue Mountains Coffee as ‘a beautifully, aromatic, chocolaty, almost sometimes fruity taste and very distinct to many other coffees’.”
Twyman is hoping to soon establish a coffee shop and an official tour of the estate which will be added to the many more options Blue Mountains has for tourists. He is also hoping to develop other products using the waste material from the coffee.
So a visit to Jamaica must include a visit to Blue Mountains. The experience of the coffee estates, the scenery, food and hospitality make it clear that Jamaica has much more to offer than beaches and reggae.