by Napoleon is currently hot with the release of Ridley Scott’s new swashbuckling biopic. However, when he died in 1821 on the British Overseas Territory of the South Atlantic island of Saint Helena, after six years of exile, historians recall that the days of this fallen megalomaniac were sad and one of his few joys. daily was coffee. The St Helena coffee he drank is today one of the rarest and most expensive in the world, retailing at £96 for 3.5 ounces at Harrods.
After arriving on the island on the newly introduced midweek flight from Johannesburg (which doubles the St Helena airlift to two flights per week), I walk to Jamestown Harbor for my first local coffee. Against the backdrop of Atlantic waves and purple-flowered jacarandas, my £3 French press arrives at Jill Bolton’s café, close to where Napoleon landed in 1815.
The coffee is made from an Arabica bean called green tip bourbon, brought from Yemen and introduced to Saint Helena by the East India Company in 1733. It has never been cross-fertilized with any other variety and remains as pure as the drink. Napoleon drank. This rarity, along with export logistics and the island’s minimal production, ensure that the beans are worth their weight in gold.
“It’s a smooth coffee with floral notes,” said Jill of Sheffield, who opened the coffee shop in 1995 with her late husband, Bill. Her coffee is one of the few places you can drink it on the island, as her beans come from a 2.5-acre plantation her husband set up called Rosemary Gate Estate. Most other cafes in the city serve imported coffee because even on the island homegrown coffee sells for around £10 per 4oz bag.
By appointment, visitors can tour Rosemary Gate, where unroasted green coffee beans are exported exclusively to Harrods. Before traveling I noticed that the Knightsbridge store was completely sold out. “There have been issues with our shipping company, so I haven’t shipped any to England since February 2022,” Jill said.
Rosemary Gate is a 25-minute drive outside Jamestown. If the capital of jewels is charming (all Georgian architecture, Union Jacks and pubs with a 70s atmosphere selling drinks at 90s prices), the terroir of the coffee plantations is like Lundy on steroids. Roads wind their way up long, steep hills and into the depths of deep valleys, while cloud forest-covered peaks slope toward dark volcanic cliffs. Driving me is Ronald, a 75-year-old taxi driver, who explains that he can’t afford to have a St. Helena coffee.
“I buy imported coffee from South Africa for three pounds a can,” he said.
The walkthrough takes me through the entire processing operation. From picking the “cherries” when they are red to removing the soft pulp and then drying the beans exposed to the sun. They are then packaged for export and those that are misshapen (the heavens above Harrods’ clientele would tolerate crooked beans) are roasted for consumption on the island at Jill’s cafe.
After being praised as the “best mocha” at the London Exhibition of 1851, St. Helena coffee production went into steep decline until the early 1990s, when a few small operations emerged. Jill remembers the first time they sold beans to Harrods. “My husband started this as a hobby when he was retired and suddenly we are the only supplier to Harrods. It was hard to believe. It’s a bit like good wine. “People buy it because of its price and fame.”
Although none of this impresses France’s honorary consul in Saint Helena, Michel Dancoisne-Martineau. I meet him for lunch at Longwood House, converted by Napoleon during his exile. After dessert, quelle surprise, imported French roast coffee arrives in bone china cups adorned with the coat of arms of the French Republic.
Michel said historians were wrong about Napoleon’s love of local coffee. “Yes, he loved drinking coffee, but, like me, he found the local coffee too bitter and weak. The coffee he enjoyed was imported from Sri Lanka.”
Michel’s duties include maintaining Longwood House, which was sold to France in 1858. It is one of the most atmospheric historic sites I have visited because inside this single-story wooden house surrounded by beautiful agapanthus gardens, it looks like if Napoleon had upped his sleeve and left yesterday. . Much of the furniture is original, including a deep bath in which he soaked for hours each day, increasingly resigned to his fate in exile.
“Longwood is a memorial to the place where he died, not a museum,” Michel said.
After lunch, Ronald takes me to spectacular Sandy Bay, where peaks of volcanic lava rise like baguettes above rampant vegetation, including banana trees that grow in the subtropical climate. St Helena’s small coffee production is concentrated here, and my caffeine-filled day ends with the lovely Debbie and Neil Fantom, who recently started coffee production at Wranghams.
Debbie is a saint (an islander) and Neil is from near Derby. They have not only restored an acre of a former company’s abandoned coffee plantation, but also a majestic 18-acre property.th19th-century Georgian manor house, where visitors are offered afternoon tea in the garden. Debbie, a wonderful cook, introduces me to island delicacies like “bread and dance”: a spicy tomato paste spread on bread.
Neil explained that they rescued the coffee trees from excessive vegetation and pruned them to produce them again with some advice obtained from the Internet. The aim was to grow enough for their own consumption, but last year they produced 175 pounds, so they sold them for £10 a bag. “In the 1970s there was a report that said Saint Helena cannot export coffee economically, but the demand for exotic roasts has changed this in the last 20 years,” Neil said.
Would you like to try a cup? he asked.
Its roast is darker and makes my first St. Helena espresso. If I hadn’t understood why this smooth coffee is so sought after beyond its fame for rarity, then my first sip of their espresso is an oral Catherine wheel, as the bolder intensity triggers wonderful citrus notes. Even Napoleon, for all his bristling Gallic disdain, might have nodded with satisfaction.
How to do it
Get there: Virgin Atlantic flies to Johannesburg from £678 return. From Johannesburg, the five-hour connection to St Helena is with Airlink from £726 return.
Where to stay: Mantis St Helena offers double B&Bs for £250 per night.
More information: Visit the website of the Saint Helena Tourist Office
