Coffee connoisseurs may soon struggle to find the famed Jamaican Blue Mountain, one of the world's most expensive coffees, after hurricanes devastated this year's crop on the Caribbean island.
Jamaican Blue Mountain arabica, known as the champagne of coffees, risks becoming dearer still because Hurricane Ivan in September ruined 60 percent of the harvest just as it started.
Hurricane Dennis in July has also taken its toll, plunging the industry into its worst crisis since 1988, when Hurricane Gilbert damaged 70 percent of the island's coffee fields and factories and shut down production for almost two years.
Only about 1,000 tonnes of Blue Mountain beans are produced a year, equivalent to three hours' coffee output in Colombia, and Japan snaps up at least 90 percent of that. The US and Europe split the rest.
"The connoisseur is definitely in trouble. We're not sure as yet what is going to happen but it is going to cause havoc," said Giles Hilton, product director at British tea and coffee retailer Whittard of Chelsea Plc.
Whittard is the UK's largest buyer of Blue Mountain and retails 125-gram (4.409 ounce) packets of "very smooth, very luxurious" ungrounded beans on its web site for 9.50 pounds ($16.95).
Hilton said the company had no plans to raise prices and would rely on stocks until they ran out.
Kobe, Japan-based Ueshima Coffee Co Ltd, the world's biggest single buyer of Blue Mountain, hiked the retail price of its key product by about 10 percent in March to 1,098 yen ($9.88) per 250 grams after securing only half its annual supplies, according to a company spokesman.
Blue Mountain makes up about 40 percent of total Jamaican coffee production, which started in 1728 with cuttings imported from nearby Martinique by a British governor of Jamaica. The island was briefly the world's No 1 source of coffee in the 19th century before the industry fell into decline.
The success of Blue Mountain has revived its fortunes. Production and quality are strictly monitored by the Jamaican Coffee Board and the beans are sold in signature wooden barrels, rather than bags like most coffee.
To use the trade-marked name, the coffee must be grown within certain parishes in Jamaica's Blue Mountains and cultivated 2,000 to 5,000 feet above sea level. The higher reaches of the mountains are usually swathed in mist, which slows the development of the coffee and adds to its fine, full flavour.
According to the Jamaican Coffee Board, Hurricane Ivan damaged 3,628 hectares of coffee and lost the industry $20 million, excluding the cost of infrastructure damage and repairs.
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