Outgoing Jamaican Ambassador to Japan, Shorna-Kay Richards, has expressed her deepest gratitude to the Association of Japanese Importers of Jamaican Coffee (AJIJC) and chairman Tatsushi Ueshima, for its “generosity and unwavering commitment to our enduring Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee trade”. 

“You have been a pillar of support and a true partner for the development of the Jamaican coffee industry”, she said as she praised the relationship between Jamaica and Japan and the role Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee has played in forging closer ties between both nations for over 70 years.

Her comments came at a reception during the joint JCEA/JACRA (Jamaica Agricultural Commodities Regulatory Authority) meeting with the AJIJC at the Big Sight Convention Centre in Koto, Tokyo, recently.

“My assignment should have ended this past June but I have thankfully been blessed with “brawta” of six additional months,” Ambassador Richards said in thanking the AJIJC for its on-going support to the Jamaican Embassy through its promotional committee which she said had devised a number of new and innovative ways to market Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee, especially in introducing the premium brew to new especially younger consumers in the valuable Japanese market, the main importer of Jamaica’s legendary brew. 

One such initiative came at the historic Yushima Tenjin Shrine, where 2,000 packets of Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee or “Kachima the winning bean” were given to Japanese students seeking divine intervention as they prepared to take their extremely competitive university entrance exams earlier this year.

Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee was also featured at the 2025 World Expo in July and August in the city of Osaka, where the “four Bs”, Bob Marley, Usain Bolt, Bobsled and Blue Mountain Coffee were on display, and thousands of patrons were gifted AJIJC-supplied coffee samples at Jamaica’s pavilion at the trade show.

Richards paid tribute to the “visionary leadership of Dr Norman Grant”, chairman of the Jamaica Coffee Exporters Association, for the active role he has played in ensuring that JBMC continues to be a product of excellence in the global coffee market. She also congratulated Grant on the recent conferment of his doctoral degree, “with his dissertation most fittingly focused on Jamaica’s Blue Mountain Coffee farmers”, she noted. 

In his response, Grant lauded Richards for her outstanding support of the development of the Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee trade in Japan.

“Ambassador Shorna-Kay Richards’ support has been incredible, she has played a critical role in the promotion of the Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee Trade Day over the past five years. She has been the glue in keeping the contact between the Jamaican and Japanese coffee industry, the promotion of Jamaica Blue Blend coffee products through some 30,000 stores across Japan, and conversely, in the distribution of 10,000 coffee seedlings donated by 7/11 to the Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee Farmers Association,” said Grant.

He also commended Richards for “partnering with us in the annual trade show and meetings between the JCEA, JACRA and AJIJC.”

The coffee trade between Jamaica and Japan began in the early 1950s, with the first direct shipment of three barrels of Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee in 1953 by Mavis Bank Coffee Factory Limited to Key Coffee Company in Japan.

The relationship has grown over the decades, and Japan is now the largest importer, consuming over 70 per cent of the coffee exported. Annually, January 9 is celebrated as Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee Day in both countries to commemorate the first large shipment that occurred on that date in 1967.