Blue Mountain estates and coffee works: a directory

Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee comes from thousands of small farms and a smaller number of named estates. Most growers sell ripe cherry to licensed coffee works, which process, grade and sell it. Some estates run their own works and sell under their own names. This directory profiles the estates and works we could verify.

How estates, small farmers and coffee works fit together

Three kinds of producer stand behind Blue Mountain labels.

• Small farmers grow most of the crop. Perfect Daily Grind reported in 2025 that close to 6,000 farmers work in the Blue Mountain region and that about 80% of the farms are under five acres. People who grow coffee in commercial quantities hold a JACRA certificate of registration, and their properties are entered in a Register of Registered Growers and Registered Properties.
• Coffee works are the processing plants. JACRA's 2018 regulations define works as the plant, machinery and premises used for fermenting, curing, drying, cleaning or preparing a commodity for sale. A separate Coffee Works License is needed, and operators must record where their coffee comes from. Works buy cherry from farmers by the box.
• Estates are named properties. Some process their own cherry and hold dealer and trademark licenses, so they can sell under their own names. Others send their cherry to a central works.

A coffee dealer's license requires production capacity of at least 6,000 boxes of cherry a year, shown by three years of records. JACRA publishes a list of active licensees on its website, and the certification guide explains each license.

Single estate is a claim worth checking. The Gleaner defined it in 2019 as coffee that all comes from one particular estate, and reported that JACRA had not yet created a formal license for the designation. Ask the seller how an estate claim is verified.

How to read these profiles

Profiles are in alphabetical order and are not a ranking. Each uses only facts we could confirm from the sources listed at the foot of the page: JACRA documents, Jamaican newspapers and government releases, estates' own websites and established importers. Elevations are as stated by the estate or its importer. Where sources disagree, we say so. A producer's absence means only that we could not verify enough about it. Mamre Blue Estate, which publishes this guide, is listed separately after the others.

Blue Mountain estate and coffee works profiles

Clifton Mount Estate

Clifton Mount lies near Newcastle, on the eastern slope of Catherine's Peak. The importer Sea Island Coffee gives its elevation as about 1,300 meters and describes it as one of the oldest continually functioning coffee estates in the world. The estate belongs to the Sharp family; Daily Coffee News named the brothers Jason and Richard Sharp as its owners in 2023. It has a great house and processes its own coffee, which Sea Island lists as washed, sun-dried and Rainforest Alliance certified. JACRA's November 2018 list shows Clifton Mount Coffee Estate Limited as a licensed coffee dealer, coffee works operator and trademark user.

Clydesdale

Clydesdale is in St Andrew, in what was once the parish of Port Royal. The Clydesdale producer website, published by Coffee Traders Ltd, says the estate was founded in the late 1700s by Dr Colin McClarty and gives an average altitude of about 1,000 meters. The old estate works no longer operates, but its factory, drying floors and water wheel survive. The Jamaica National Heritage Trust notes the barbecues and waterwheel at the site, now Clydesdale National Forest Park. Smallholders still farm coffee in the area. Coffee Traders Limited appears on JACRA's 2018 list as a licensed dealer and coffee works operator.

Craighton Estate

Craighton is in St Andrew. Its great house, Craighton House, is believed to have been built in 1805 and is named after its first owner, George Craighton, according to the Jamaica National Heritage Trust. The area produced coffee in the 1800s. The Japanese company UCC Ueshima Coffee bought the house and estate in 1981 and re-established coffee there. UCC describes Craighton as the first Blue Mountain estate operated directly by a Japanese company, at 800 to 900 meters, with slopes as steep as 40 degrees. Its beans are processed at Mavis Bank and shipped in wooden barrels.

Flamstead Estate

Flamstead is in St Andrew, at over 3,300 feet, according to Blue Mountain Coffee Inc, its exclusive online distributor in the United States. The distributor says coffee was first reported at Flamstead in 1764 and that the modern farm was established by Carlyle Dunkley. His son Stephen Dunkley manages it, and Daily Coffee News also named Stephen Dunkley as its owner in 2023. The coffee grows in the shade of banana, plantain and inga trees. It is processed in small batches at the estate's own wet mill, which uses spring water.

Greenwich Mountain Estate

Greenwich Mountain Estate Limited appears on JACRA's November 2018 licensee list in three categories: licensed coffee dealer, licensed operator of coffee works and licensed trademark user. Together, those licenses cover processing coffee and selling it under the Jamaica Blue Mountain mark. A business directory listing gives the company's location as Kingston and St Andrew. The listing repeats the company's description of itself as the first fully integrated single Blue Mountain coffee estate in modern Jamaica. We could not confirm its elevation or history from a primary source.

Mavis Bank Coffee Factory (JABLUM)

Mavis Bank Coffee Factory stands in the small rural town of Mavis Bank, in the Blue Mountains of St Andrew. Victor and Edna Munn founded it in 1923 on 12 acres. It made its first export to Tokyo, three barrels of green coffee, in March 1953, and launched the JABLUM roasted brand in 1982. After a period in receivership and ownership by a Jamaica Producers and Pan Jam venture, it was bought in 2016 by Michael Lee-Chin's Specialty Coffee Investments. It acquired the Wallenford brand in 2020. In 2023 the Jamaica Observer reported that it serves about 4,000 farmers in Portland, St Thomas and St Andrew.

Moy Hall

The name Moy Hall appears in two roles in our sources. The Moy Hall Coffee Factory hosted the March 2004 annual meeting of the Blue Mountain Coffee Cooperative, based in Cedar Valley, St Thomas. The Jamaica Information Service reported that the cooperative's output had grown from 8,000 boxes in 1998 to 44,000, and that it had built a store for 60,000 boxes. Separately, Moy Hall Estate Coffee is produced in St Thomas by Nakashka Coffee Company, run by Courtney and Paula Fletcher, which began farming coffee in 1994. The Gleaner reported in 2024 that the company had long exported about 90% of its crop.

Old Tavern Coffee Estate

Old Tavern is a family estate near Hardwar Gap in the Blue Mountains. Alex and Dorothy Twyman bought the property in 1968, and since Alex Twyman's death it has been run by Dorothy and their son David. The Gleaner reported in 2019 that its coffee is grown, processed and packed at 4,000 feet, largely by hand in small batches. Moon Jamaica notes limited use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, traditional fermentation and sun-drying, and slow ripening, with cherries staying on the trees for about ten months in the mist. Moon also highlights the estate's peaberry.

RSW Estates and Sherwood Coffee Works

RSW is a partnership of three family farms, Resource, Sherwood Forest and Whitfield Hall, across the Yallahs River from Mavis Bank. According to the importer Martinez Fine Coffees, all three have grown coffee since the late eighteenth century, Whitfield Hall was founded in 1776, and the partnership's coffee is processed only at Sherwood Coffee Works. CoffeeTalk magazine dates Crown patents for the Sherwood Forest and Eccleston plantations to 1797 and describes the works' 18-foot iron waterwheel. Sherwood Forest's own website places it in St Thomas and says the RSW brand is no longer sold, though the farms still produce coffee.

Sir John's Peak Estate

Sir John's Peak Estate is in St Andrew, with further land at Bangor Ridge in Portland. Its website gives an elevation of 5,000 feet and describes this as one of the highest points in the certified Blue Mountain area. The estate is run by the Ramsay and Salmon families; its chairman, Donald Salmon, is president of the Jamaica Coffee Growers Association. It grows the Geisha variety on about 50 acres and says it produces about 20 tonnes a year. The Coffee Industry Board licensed it to export green beans in 2013. Its coffee is washed, sun-dried and packed in aspen barrels.

Wallenford Coffee Company

Wallenford was for years majority-owned by the Government of Jamaica. In 2013 the government sold it to Michael Lee-Chin's AIC International Investments for US$16 million. The Jamaica Observer reported in 2022 that its lands cover more than 5,000 acres across several coffee-growing parishes, with about 300 farming families leasing land there. Wallenford's website describes a pulpery and finishing plant, sun-drying on concrete slabs, eight to ten weeks of resting in silos, and grading into Nos. 1, 2 and 3 and peaberry. JACRA's 2018 list shows it as a licensed dealer, coffee works operator and trademark user. Mavis Bank acquired the brand in 2020.

Mamre Blue Estate, publisher of this guide

Mamre Blue Estate

Mamre Blue Estate publishes this field guide, so we describe it only with facts we can state plainly. It is a single estate in Jamaica's Blue Mountains, growing Arabica Typica at over 3,400 feet, where the coffee takes roughly ten months to ripen. JACRA approved Mamre Blue as a Special Coffee Dealer and Trademark User Licensee in January 2021. That license covers selling roasted beans or ground coffee, bought from a licensed coffee dealer, under the licensee's own label. Mamre Blue sells 100% Jamaica Blue Mountain whole bean, ground and pod coffee, plus Premium Blend pods, whose blend percentage is not published. See the shop.

Summary table of Blue Mountain estates and coffee works

Producers we could not profile

Silver Hill is often named in accounts of the industry as a historic Blue Mountain coffee factory. We could not find a primary or press source to confirm its history or current status, so it is not profiled here. Many other licensed producers also exist. If you can point us to a reliable source for a producer, please use the contact page. For how the coffee is made after it leaves the farm, see from cherry to cup, and for the wider story, the history of Blue Mountain coffee.