BRANDON HILL, Jamaica — A few years ago in this mist-shrouded mountain town, steep slopes were quilted with some of the world’s most valuable coffee trees. Farmers scrambled to increase acreage and pickers painstakingly filled wooden boxes with ripened berries at harvest time.
Today, much of the terrain is overgrown with underbrush and bamboo as a declining luxury market in Japan and a voracious beetle drive thousands of frustrated small farmers away from tiny plots of leased highlands.
Jamaica produces what connoisseurs rank as one of the world’s finest coffees
. The moist, cool climate of the Blue Mountains lengthens the growing period from five to about 10 months, allowing sugars to develop in the beans that grow inside the berries. The roasted beans often sell for about $40 a pound in the United States, up to four times the price of other gourmet coffees.
