The Spa Deck of the Spanish Court hotel provided the perfect spot for our Food Awards tasting. With two gourmet coffees to be brewed, the breathtaking view of the Blue Mountain range provided the perfect backdrop and as night descended, a brilliant full moon enveloped the sky. Our guest judges, JMA President Omar Azan, Wisynco Managing Director William Mahfood, top music personality ZJ Bambino and attorney-at-law cum restaurant crawler Annaliesa Lindsay, added their unique insight to the evening’s proceedings, while business reporter and coffee lover Steven Jackson took the notes…

Operators of three new premium brands — Marley Coffee, Strawberry Hill Coffee and WingKing gourmet chicken wings — revealed Tuesday last that quality and innovation have fuelled their local and international expansion.

The brands were invited to the Jamaica Observer Food Awards judging session at the Spanish Court hotel.

Marley Coffee directors described their coffee as subtle and balanced, meaning potent without the bitterness. Marley Coffee will retail for US$27 per 12 ounces.

“The Marley brand is not making something cool and novel. It’s the real thing,” stated Jason Sharp, an investor in Marley Coffee and also a director of sales and marketing at Coffee Traders Ltd. “With Blue Mountain Coffee it is a mild aromatic coffee… It will not hit you like a freight train.”

Already, Marley Coffee can be found in 23 Whole Foods stores throughout California, but Balram Vaswani CEO announced plans to further widen its availability. He added that the company’s innovation in securing organic certification (the first for the island’s coffee) would allow it to capture the eco-conscious market, especially in Japan. “There was no such thing as Jamaica organic Blue Mountain Coffee when we started,” he said about the organic process which precludes the use of pesticides and burning, amongst other things.

Other celebrity investors are Rohan Marley, son of Bob Marley, and Lennox Lewis, former heavyweight boxing champion. The company is also embarking on lines sold at different price points including ‘Buffalo Soldier’, ‘Mystic Morning’, ‘Lively Up!’, ‘Simmer Down’, ‘One Love’, and ‘Lion’s Blend Jammin Java’.

Strawberry Hill Ground Coffee

Turning our attention to Strawberry Hill’s branded Blue Mountain Coffee, co-founder Jonathan Surtees stated that Strawberry Hill Ground Coffee was soft-launched “this month” and will retail for US$14 per eight ounces. The coffee is currently available at Strawberry Hill, Geejam and Golden Eye hotels. There are also plans to distribute it in select supermarkets.

Unlike Marley Coffee, Surtees deliberately chose a “dark roast” for his brand in order to appeal to a European rather than an American taste.

“It isn’t charred, but it brings out the real nutty flavour,” he said, later adding that the coffee’s packaging was designed to make it easily identifiable: “We went for a traditional packaging, but it is in a lighter off-white burlap bag with black labelling in order to stand out”.

Trusted farmers reap the brand’s coffee from within a similar micro-climate of the Blue Mountains, including Irish Town, Red Light, Settlement, Cambridge and Woodford.

“These areas are roughly the same altitude and soil type, which is important because the beans ripen at the same time and contain a similar acidity. So we should be able to sustain a particular flavour for our Blue Mountain Coffee,” stated Surtees.

Strawberry Hill hotel, located in Irish Town (Blue Mountains), consists of 12 spacious cottages that overlook the city whilst offering calming views of the gardens. The 50-acre property currently grows coffee on four acres, but Surtees will ramp up on-site production within the next 18 months. Interestingly, it marks a return to the 1890s when the property was originally developed as a coffee estate. Coffee Traders Ltd, operated by the Sharp family, will process and roast the reaped coffee for Strawberry Hill.