Thursday, February 27, 2014

Kona Coffee!

Photo from Kona Mountain Coffee.

If there’s one thing the western side of the Big Island is
known for it’s coffee, Kona Coffee to be specific! Hawai'i is the only
state in the US to commercially grow coffee; and among the islands, only the Kona
district grows this caffeinated treat.

Kona Coffee actually celebrated its 200th
anniversary last year. This
thriving industry began in 1813 when King Kamehameha’s (the warrior-king who
unified all the islands of Hawai’i) Spanish interpreter and physician, Don
Francisco de Paula y Marin, planted the first trees on O’ahu. A few years later, the Rev. Joseph
Goodrich brought the trees to the Big Island before missionary Samuel Ruggles
planted the first Arabica trees in the western side of the island in 1828.

Coffee prefers shade and dry, cool summers so it did well on
the Big Island’s volcanic slopes where clouds sweep in during the afternoons,
and ocean breezes temper the tropical sun. Kona Coffee is known to have a finish with floral notes with
hints of peach, plum, and chocolate.

Although Kona coffee has been
around for over two centuries, it did not became popular among connoisseurs
until the 1980s (which worked perfectly for the farmers of Hawai’i as it was
the same time that sugar cane farming was beginning to phase out).

Photo from KonaCoffeeFarmers.org

Harvesting occurs year round and yields some of the best
cherries (the red colored coffee beans) in the world. But because the cherries must be picked by hand in the
rugged sloped coffee terrain (some of which is grown as high as 3,200 feet
above sea level) it has a tendency to translates to higher labor costs (to generate a sellable pound of coffee beans requires 7
pounds of cherries) which
translates to high coffee costs (the beans usually run between $30-$50 a pound).

The process
starts with a pulping machine that removes the tiny beans at the center of the
cherry (usually there are two beans facing each other in a cherry, although
occasionally one bean fails to divide leading to a high prized peaberry!). Then the beans ferment in water and
followed by being placed in drying racks in the sun. Finally the beans are milled to remove the parchment
skin, with the remaining green beans to be graded and roasted.

The majority of Kona’s 600 coffee farms are small,
family-run operations of 2-5 acres although there are a few larger farms (such as Kona Mountain Coffee).