Mountain coffee – another name of Arabica coffee.

Mountain coffee has another name as of arabica coffee. This coffee has this name because arabica is mostly grown in high mountains to provide the best flavor and productivity. Normally, best coffees across the globe are grown in mountains such as Kona mountain, Jamaica blue mountain, Cau Dat mountain or Chieng Ban mountain.

Mountain coffee with a long journey to be king of coffees.

Arabica coffee was first found in southwestern highlands of Ethiopia. It is considered as first coffee trees cultivated as an agriculture product. Arabica is the best quality and widest used coffee around the world thanks to its less proportion of caffeine, pleasant fragrance and impressive flavor.

The geographic condition of highland or mountainous area is perfect for the development of mountain coffees. This coffee is grown at the altitude of 1,300m to 1,500m above sea level (asl). Coffee arabica grown at higher altitude can have very outstanding and high-quality flavors. The suitable height for cultivating mountainous coffee is a main reason why this coffee is only planted on high mountains.

Temperature is very important to mountain coffees.

Moreover, low temperature (between 15°C and 24°C) but not frost climate on mountains is perfect for coffee arabica. It also requires high rainfall and less sunshine. Not only a low temperature condition is required, the gaps between temperature in daytime against temperature at night must be large enough to create high quality mountain coffee. The height and cool temperature unlocks the purity of mountain coffee which enables its tastes as purest as possible. As a result, its taste is very clean, pure, a little bit sour and smooth whilst taste of robusta tends to be more strong, robust and bitter.

How to harvest mountain coffees?

This coffee takes nine to eleven months to fully get matured, from planting seeds to harvesting the coffee cherries. It must be flowered during rainy season and harvested during dry season when coffee cherries are bright red, glossy and firm. Ripe cherries are harvested or picked by hand, stripped from the tree or collected using a harvesting machine. These processes are called selective picking, stripping and mechanical harvesting. To maximize the amount of ripe coffee harvested, it is necessary to selectively pick the ripe coffee beans from the tree by hand and leave unripe, green beans behind to be harvested at a later time.

In general, farming mountain coffees is not as hard-working as climbing on a mountain; however, it requires more efforts and techniques to take care of than other coffees. Each tree can product 0.5 to 5.0 kgs of dried coffee beans. Each cherry usually holds two beans (or two seeds), sometimes three beans or some species have only one bean which is called “peaberry”. The beans are surrounded by an outer layer called parchment and an inner layer called silver skin.

Where are mountain coffees mainly grown?

Coffee arabica is mostly grown in mountains of Brazil, Columbia, East African countries, Hawaii, Central America, Indonesia and some Western Asian countries. In Vietnam, the most preferable regions for growing mountain coffee are Lam Dong province in the Central Highlands, all mountainous areas from the Central to the North excepting the North East delta. Most potential places are A Luoi rural district in Hue, Ha Tinh, Nghe An, Son La, Dien Bien and Lai Chau. Mountain coffee in Bolaven plateau in Laos is also noticeable. Mountain coffee in Vietnam is almost catimor which is a hybrid between caturra and timor.

Mountain coffee and its cup taste.

A cup of mountain coffee has sweet and lightly bitter combined with slight of pleasant acidity and beautiful aroma. Its aroma is very special with the combination of chocolate, caramel and some fruit-like flavors. Coffee arabica is the main component in brewing espresso.

Generally, mountain coffee is the only species with 44 chromosomes of coffea. And its caffeine content just accounts for 0.9% to 1.7% of each bean’s volume. Unlike robusta coffee, you can drink more cups of mountain coffee at such a low caffeine.

To sum up, mountain coffee has been also known as arabica coffee which mainly grows in mountains. Mountain coffee is of a higher quality as compared to other types. Due to being planted onto high mountains, it takes farmers more efforts to grow them up and harvest coffee cherries. Mountain coffee is also lower in caffeine content which differs from 0.9% to 1.7%. Currently, it shares the biggest amount of coffee consumption across the globe per annum. The best single estate mountain coffees you might know can include Jamaica blue moutain, Kona mountain, Brazilian milds, Columbian milds, Chieng Ban and Cau Dat, Vietnam.