ATLANTA, GA. 21 November, 2005 -- Clifton Mount We are pleased to introduce a new single-estate coffee from Jamaica's Blue Mountains. Clifton Mount Estate is one of the oldest coffee plantations in Jamaica, and it is located in the heart of the Blue Mountains on the slopes of Catherine's Peak. Jamaica Blue Mountain Clifton Mount Estate The English painter Marianne North stayed at Clifton Mount in 1872 on the first leg of her world travels and described the property in her autobiography "Recollections of a happy life". Clifton Lodge is a place where one can enjoy "... a dose of cool air 5,000 feet above the sea, beyond the lovely fern walk and in the midst of the finest and oldest coffee plantation in Jamaica. It was a charming little house surrounded by a garden full of flowers. Opposite was the real Blue Mountain with clouds rolling across it ... (and) there was a village just below it, with a great coffee growing establishment and bushes of it for miles on the hillsides."¹ The North Gallery at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew houses 832 oil paintings recording flora which she saw on her travels. George Mifflin Dallas Clifton Mount has other interesting links. The city of Dallas, Texas was named for the grandson of the first owner Capt. William Smith whose daughter Anabella and her husband Alexander James Dallas used "proceeds from the sale of his property in the hills" to emigrate to Philadelphia (1783). Alexander J. Dallas became Secretary of the Treasury under President James Madison: but it was his son, George Mifflin Dallas, who rose to political prominence becoming our nation's eleventh Vice President under James K. Polk, for whom Dallas, Texas was named. Catherine's Peak ( 5,060') from the garden. The second owner, Robert Hamilton, was the person who established coffee at Clifton Mount. Coffee had been introduced into Jamaica in 1728. Conditions in the Blue Mountains proved to be most favourable and the product was found to be of very high quality. Cultivation expanded rapidly and in 1737, a short nine years after its introduction, 88,000 pounds of coffee was exported. It was sometime during the ensuing coffee boom of 1790-1815 that coffee was planted at Clifton Mount. An 1810 survey of the area describes Clifton Mount: "The plantation is divided into two parts: a) Top Mountain, with 80 acres in coffee where the house and the "old works" is situated and; b) Bottom Mountain, with 111 acres in coffee and a "new works" situated on the west bank of the Yallahs River." The name Hamilton is associated with Clifton Mount for the next 100 years. J. Martinez & Company -- exclusive U.S. importers of Clifton Mount Estate coffee Looking towards Blue Mountain Peak (7,402') Coffee was produced at Clifton Mount continuously from the 1790's until 1950 when a hurricane caused severe damage. After that the property was allowed to go into ruinate. In 1983, Richard Sharp, eldest son of the present owners, took over the day-to-day operations of the property and began the re-establishment of coffee at Clifton Mount. Early indications were good. Our founder, John Martinez, encouraged the Sharp family to establish a pulpery so that the coffee could be sold as a single-estate coffee. In 2003/2004 the outturn of the farm was 16,000 boxes of high quality coffee and in March of 2004 construction was completed on the pulpery. In September 2004 hurricane Ivan, a category five storm, skirted Jamaica's coast causing extensive damage reducing the 2004/2005 crop by more than fifty percent. At a time when most coffee merchants are out-of-stock of Jamaica's renowned Blue Mountain coffee we are fortunate not only to to have stocks but to introduce to you a new single-estate coffee from one of Jamaica's oldest coffee plantations. We invite you to enjoy this coffee from Clifton Mount Estate and, to share it with your friends.