Delicious

More than a century ago, Keauhou was the playground for Hawaiian Royalty. Now the area is known for its famous Kona Coffee. Our farm is located on the slopes of Mt. Hualalai at about the 1800 ft elevation level. We overlook the beautiful blue waters of Keauhou Bay. The combination of morning sun with afternoon cloud cover, cool nights, and optimal rainfall is essential for the development of quality coffee beans. The porous, volcanic soil is the perfect planting medium and provides excellent drainage so necessary for the coffee trees.

Coffee Trees

Many people are familiar with bitter coffee, usually Robusta, which contains more caffeine and usually has quite a “kick” to it. Kona Coffee is an Arabica bean, with excellent taste and very mild. Many people find that they can drink a Kona coffee without having to load it up with sugar and cream, often used to minimize the bitter taste of other coffees. When our trees bloom, delicate flowers appear overnight and upon waking, farmers look out across the trees and see the blossoms on the branches, looking similar to a coating of snow! Thus the name “Kona Snow” for the blossoming.

Processing

Once coffee cherry is picked, it must be processed quickly. The outer covering (cherry) is removed. We call this “pulping”. Then the parchment is washed to remove the sweet mucilage. Then the beans are laid out on a drying deck where our warm weather helps the coffee beans reach an internal moisture level of 12 to 15 percent. At this point, the product could be stored as is or milled to remove the green beans from the parchment-like covering and then stored. When ordered, we take the green beans and place them into the roaster and bring the beans to the proper roast level which you have specified. The beans go through a number of stages before that level is reached. Soon your coffee beans are cooled and placed in bags with special one-way valves which allow the carbon dioxide and gasses to exit the bag, yet keep oxygen from getting in to quickly stale the coffee.