Great coffee starts with great beans. This article will cover my personal and professional review of Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee Costco. This review is the straight up truth with no BS. The only axe being ground here is where to find great coffee.
What Is Great Coffee?
In my personal and professional opinion, great coffee must be smooth as silk with zero bitterness and not over roasted, i.e., if the bean’s black then it’s not worth feeding to pigs. Great coffee isn’t about the caffeine. For me, great coffee is a comfort food. It makes me relax and enjoy the experience.
By my definition of great coffee, that pretty much eliminates all the large industrial coffee companies like Kirkland, Yuban, Hills Brothers, Folgers, and as well as all the small local coffee roasters trying to become the next Charbucks.
Only Two kinds of Coffee Plants: Robusta and Arabica
Robusta Coffee Beans
Robusta coffee plants are very prolific, growing dang near anywhere near the equator. It takes next to zero effort to cultivate and grow these plants. They’re easy to harvest and even easier to process. The most appealing thing about Robusta is that it is dirt cheap. The downside is that it’s bitter as hell and the taste is pretty much one dimensional. To say that Robusta coffee tastes nasty is an understatement.
The world’s largest producer of Robusta beans is Vietnam. And the world’s largest buyer of Robusta beans is the large industrial coffee companies in the United States, i.e., Charbucks and their ilk.
Arabica Coffee Beans
Arabica coffee plants make great coffee beans that taste amazing. The rub is that Arabica Coffee plants are finicky to grow. They need soil that’s rather acidic. The better beans come from plants that are growing above 1,000 meters in elevation. Additionally, arabica plants like a little shade. The real pain here is that these plants almost always grow on farms with very steep terrain. Can you imagine picking berries from plans growing on a 40% inclined slope?
There certainly is a number of hardships to overcome when it comes to growing Arabica Coffee Beans. BUT the end result is often a bean far superior to Robusta beans. Generally speaking fresh roasted Arabica beans are smooth tasting with a whole variety of different flavor notes.
Premium Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee Review
The real-deal Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee has a reputation for being smooth with very little, if any, bitterness. For the pleasure of drinking this purported premium coffee, you can expect to shell out $40 to $100 per pound.
As a coffee roaster, I can receive samples of just about any green bean that I want. With the bean being green, I can roast it exactly the way I like it; low-n-slow to a medium-dark color, thus preserving the bean’s natural oils. These oils are where all the bioflavonoids, antioxidants, caffeine, and flavor reside. Thus, my unique style of roasting bringing out the best flavor in the coffee beans. I roast all of my beans this way, including Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee beans.
After taste testing some of the best and most expensive, medium roasted, Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee, I can confidently say it’s smooth, flavorful, and WAY overpriced. Here at Lake City Coffee, we source only beans from the Tarrazu region of Costa Rica. Why? Because it’s as good and most often better than Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee AND at a fraction of the price.
What Is Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee by Costco
Speaking of price, you can find Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee at Costco for a mere $9.00 per pound. If everyone else is selling Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee for $40 – $100 per pound, how on earth can Costco sell it for $9.00. Personally, I can tell you that my company’s wholesale price for Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee beans is $28 per pound. Again, how can Costco sell it at retail for $9.00?
The answer is pretty simple. They can’t. Costco is NOT selling 100% Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee. They are selling a blend of half a dozen different beans grown from a number of countries around the Caribbean. This blend, most likely has less than 5% Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee.
Reviewing Costco’s Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee
How does Costco’s Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee stand up to the real thing? As stated earlier, genuine 100% Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee is very good; smooth, expensive as hell, yet flavorful.
On the other hand, Costco’s Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee is a “BLEND” and it doesn’t taste anything like 100% Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee. In fact, Costco’s Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee tastes little different than any other large industrial coffee company’s burnt and bitter coffee.
Roast Date
One of the most important factors in great coffee is when the roasted coffee is fresh. By fresh, I mean that the beans were roasted less than 30 days ago. After 30 days, roasted coffee beans start going stale, i.e. bitter. No amount of space-age packaging can change this fact.
Fresh roasted coffee will always beat old stale coffee, regardless of where the beans originated. Therefore, do not buy any coffee that doesn’t have a roast date. Yet, Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee by Costco does not prominently show its roast date. Most coffee sold in America has been sitting in warehouses and on store shelves for months if not years. I’m afraid, this is also true of Costco’s Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee.
Customer Review – John of Sun City AZ (Sep 13th, 2021)
Well, I got my Lake City Coffee (Costa Rican) a little bit ago. My favorite coffee in the world prior to tonight was Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee from country traders. But at $44 plus shipping a bag it is out of my price range for a daily drink. Well, I will say that your coffee is actually better than blue mountain at less than half the price. Thank you.
I hope that you are proud of the coffee that you have created. It is wonderful. Thanks and I will be ordering more in a few weeks after I drink this. I will be mentioning this coffee to my friends and probably to a forum that I am on also. Great work.
I’m a true “coffee snob” according to my brother. I was looking for the best coffee and found Lake City Coffee. I’m telling you, if you pass on trying this coffee, it’s your loss! This is truly 5 star coffee.
If you like true Jamaican Blue Mountain, you’ll love this coffee.
Lake City Coffee
Alisha (my lovely wife and business partner) and I love coffee that’s super smooth . We believe that the smoothest and most flavorful beans are grown in the Tarrazu region of Costa Rica. This is from where we source all our beans.
To make doubly sure our coffee is super smooth, we roast low-n-slow to preserve the bean’s oils, then we ship our roasted beans the same day. With the best beans that money can buy and making sure they’re on your table in less than 72 hours, we can confidently say, Lake City Coffee is the best whole bean coffee that you’re likely to find anywhere.