OFTEN referred to as Jamaica’s ‘Black Gold’, coffee is the main business of Mavis Bank Coffee Factory (MBCF), which sits in the lofty, misty Blue Mountains of Eastern St Andrew.

MBCF is the home of the renowned JABLUM (Jamaica Blue Mountain) Coffee, and Jamaica’s largest and only fully integrated Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee facility.

Built on just five acres of land in 1923, MBCF was a dream of Victor C Munn that sprouted to fruition and continues to grow new roots in 2012. However, its history dates further back than 1923.

In 1728, on a visit to Jamaica, the British Governor transported a few sacred Arabic coffee seedlings from Hispaniola. This gave birth to coffee farming on the island, but the coffee revolution that took hold of Jamaica must be accredited to the band of Haitian coffee growers who fled Haiti during her 1790 revolutions, and the group of newly freed Jamaican slaves who sought refuge in the mountainous terrain of Jamaica.

Today, MBCF processes approximately 1.4 million pounds of green beans from over 6,000 farmers annually. This is then exported to countries all over the world as JABLUM Coffee, either roasted or instant, with the main buyers being Japan, United States, Europe, China, and the Caribbean.

Coffee fanatics agree that the painstaking process that MBCF puts the coffee through in order to create JABLUM perfectly every time is indeed worth the wait. With the seeds originally planted by our ancestors, no wonder our taste buds tingle with nostalgia, satisfaction and pride.

Indeed, giving us, and parts of the world, “the coffee experience beyond compare”.