jamaican blue mountain is among the worlds best (and most expensive) coffees. but then again, so are many others....what it all boils down to, really, is taste. personally, the best coffee i've EVER had (in my opinion, there is no accurate measure of quality) though was a sidamo coffee that was sundried while still inside the cherry, infusing the seed with LOADS of sweet, fruity underflavors before it was roasted and prepared as "coffee beans" (they aren't beans at all, really, but the pit of the coffee cherry) it still tasted like coffee of course, but like many african and arabian coffees had more fruity flavors to it. i also like coffee from yemen. but location isn't the only factor. you can have lousy blue mountain, i'm sure, just as you can have lousy 100% konas or lousy kenyan or ethiopian or guatemalan coffees....certain people get to buy the best beans, it's NOT all the same, and much of the coffee is grown in smaller farms rather than plantations, and taste can change farm to farm, village to village, and so on. the island of sulawesi demonstrates this well. after all that is said and done, certain coffees demand certain roasts and certain brewing methods. while there are some legitimate bad feelings on the part of local coffeeshop owners towards companies such as starbucks, there is no denying that at least in the realm of whole bean coffee sales (where they got their start) they offer some genuinely good coffees across the world. their ethiopia sidamo is consistantly good, whereas i've had ethiopian coffees other places that just didn't stand up to my liking. i do like local shops, too, but they're often less consistant. while in key west i visited a shop called badass coffee or something like that....cute place, friendly staff....pride themselves on offering 100% kona all the time. i ordered a cup of this, excited to be drinking some really good coffee....and....was severely disappointed. its not that the coffee was bad....its that it wasn't what people rave about when you bring up kona. its usually pretty up in the air.....just because a region is famed for making SOME of the best coffee in the world, doesnt mean all of it is good, just because it's expensive. a lot of the time you're paying for the name.
