One event at the recent SCAA conference was a meeting for members of the Roasters Guild. Before the start of the meeting I, like many others, passed some time chatting with other roasters. Much of the discussion was on coffee, roasting techniques, and the conference and this eventually led to the question, "What's your favorite coffee?" I explained that up until recently it had been my Kenya AA (see How the SCAA Saved My Kenya AA) but now I was really enjoying the Mocha Java Blend. This question prompted the perfectly reasonable question. "What's in it?"
Our Mocha Java Blend has always been made with coffees from Yemen and Java, but this is not always the case elsewhere and there are good arguments for using different coffees. Understanding this requires a look back into coffee history.
Mocha Java Blend is the oldest known coffee blend. Others certainly predated it, but this was the first coffee successfully marketed as a blend of more than one coffee with some kind of origin designation. It was a blend of Mocha coffee and Java coffee. So, what does that mean?
It is widely accepted that although coffee is indigenous to Ethiopia, it was first cultivated in Yemen and Yemen first started to export coffee commercially both by land and through the port of al Maka (marked Mocha on Western maps). Ships bound for Western Europe would take coffee from both Yemen and Ethiopia and this coffee would be sold as Mocha for the port it was taken at. This old naming system persists to the present day to a certain extent. While Ethiopian coffee is sold as Ethiopian coffee and Yemeni coffee is sold as Yemeni coffee, Mocha coffees can be found in both countries. Incidentally, no coffee is presently shipped from the port of Mocha. A sandbar blocks access by sea.
Today, any coffee sold as Java should have been grown on the island bearing that name, but this has not always been the case. By the end of the 18th century, coffee production from that island was so great that the word "java" became synonymous with coffee, a usage that still exists today. Within the trade, Java coffee could be anything grown in the Pacific. This makes sense to a point. Many of these islands were Dutch colonies and there was little demand at the time for specific origin determinations.
Even with Mocha coffees being anything grown in Arabia or Northern Africa and Java coffees coming from Java or Sumatra or any other island growing coffee, the two would remain quite different in taste. Under these circumstances, it was inevitable that the two would one day be blended in such a way that the best characteristics of each coffee would be highlighted. Even so, it is unlikely that the first person to develop a Mocha Java Blend could say with any certainty where the coffees used were grown.
So why use Yemen and Java coffees now? These are not the cheapest coffees among the traditional Mocha and Java origins and it is certainly possible to make delicious blends of other coffees from these broad geographic regions.
First, given exceptional Yemen Mocha and fine Java coffees, it is usually possible to develop a very good Mocha Java blend. As for historical flexibility in naming, I think a Mocha Java blend should reflect the tougher standards of the present day. People in the specialty coffee trade try to avoid buying Guatemalan coffee that was grown in Honduras or Hawaiian coffee that was grown in Panama. When coffees are revealed to be other than what they were marketed as, we call it fraud. It is not unheard of for a roastery to sell a Mocha Java blend at a price reasonable for a blend of coffees from Yemen and Java while using cheaper ingredients. I like to think that this practice is not as common as it once was, but it never hurts to ask whenever Mocha Java Blend is sold at a higher price than other coffees.
Based on these considerations, I always make Mocha Java Blend from coffee from Java and real Yemen Mocha. It isn't the only right way to make a Mocha Java blend, but I like it.