It all began 30 years ago when the French port city of Le Havre on France’s northwest Atlantic coast and Jacques Vabre, purveyors of fine coffee, created the Transat Jacques Vabre transatlantic boat race. The race, regarded as one of the best of the transatlantic races, pays tribute to the shipping routes taken by sailing ships as far back as the 17th century from France to reach the coffee plantations on the other side of the Atlantic. The race took off on October 29th in stormy weather  and the 30th anniversary edition will take the 194 skippers racing in four categories of sailing vessels to Martinique over the original French coffee route. 

Jacque Vabre 100% French, limited edition rich in Arabica Typica coffee from Martinique. Photos courtesy Jacques Vabre. Handout via The Gourmet Gazette

But that original coffee route all began centuries before on October 8th, 1720, when the intrepid Gabriel-Mathieu Francois D’ceus de Clieu boarded the flute (a flat boat) named Le Dromadaire (the Dromedary) with two precious Arabica Typica coffee plants emanating from Louis XIV’s private gardens. The boat weathered more than a storm or two, like the sailing skippers that set off on the 2023 race,  and Gabriel de Clieu, French naval officer and commander of the Royal and Military Order of Saint Louis, would give up his drinking water so the plants could thrive.  Only one of them made it but it was planted in the commander’s garden and until 1800, coffee plants thrived in Martinique which became the cradle of coffee in the Americas and plants were exported from there to Latin America at large. This was a particularly delicious and delicate coffee, the arabica as opposed to the stronger robusta. Other crops would replace the coffee trees like sugar, for instance, over the years. But the Arabica Typica coffee plants were re-introduced into Martinique in 2017 and since 2021, when the Transat Jacques Vabre finished in Martinique, the house of Jacques Vabre has joined forces with the Martinique Region Natural Park and the Agricultural Research Center for International Development to ensure the reintroduction and sustainability of growing Arabica Typica coffee plants on the island. 

Jacques Vabre created its line of Pure Origin coffees back in 1995 to celebrate the special quality of the lands that have historically provided coffee like Brazil or Kenya. Today the house offers ten origin coffees. Jacques Vabre, a house that is committed to sustainable development, is working closely with the 20 coffee producers in Martinique in areas like optimal growing in the region, improvement of the land, the renewal of the coffee plants and to fight against disease and pests using green farming prevention techniques. A new limited edition of the Jacques Vabre Martinique coffee was unveiled in Le Havre during the Transat Jacque Vabre. It is a coffee that is 100% French and made mainly from the exceptional Arabica Typica beans with 35% of Liberica beans, a coffee plant that has found the growing conditions in Martinique to be most suitable. The Gourmet Gazette had the good fortune to taste the coffee in the house’s tasting rooms in Paris last September. This was some of the smoothest coffee we have tasted in a long time. Zero bitterness, zero agression on the palette, perhaps those island trade winds have something to do with the smoothness. And it enjoyed a deep, dreamy  black color. ©Trish Valicenti for The Gourmet Gazette. https://www.jacques-vabre.com/