Stand­ing in the cloud for­est high above the Kailua coast on the big island of Hawai’i, it is a sim­ple next step to be men­tally trans­ported to cof­fee farms in Guatemala, Colombia, or any other trop­i­cal par­adise. The dif­fer­ence is that this is Kona.

Kona, the name con­jures up many feel­ings and impres­sions depend­ing who you are. To the cof­fee indus­try, many won­der what all the fuss is about. To tourists, this one and prob­a­bly only expe­ri­ence with cof­fee farms rep­re­sents the pin­na­cle of what cof­fee must be and darn well worth the com­mand­ing price. To non-coffee res­i­dents on the island Kona rep­re­sents another ele­ment of the Hawai’i Disneyland that fuels the often-hackneyed travel industry.

However, to the peo­ple who are Kona cof­fee, the red fruit rep­re­sents so much more.

On our first night in Kailua-Kona at the Sheraton Keauhou Bay, a beau­ti­ful upscale resort-style hotel perched on the black lava of Mauna Loa and being pounded by the sea, the extra­or­di­nary pres­ence of “place” found here grace­fully unfolds as the sun fades. We are here to expe­ri­ence the Kona Coffee Cultural Festival at the invi­ta­tion of the Festival and the Hawaiian Coffee Council. I knew that this was not likely to be my typ­i­cal bad road, jug­gled kid­neys, bad baños kind of trip, but I was com­pletely unpre­pared for the first impres­sion the Kona Coffee Cultural Festival gave me.

Settling in at the Sheraton and check­ing our itin­er­ary, tonight was the open­ing of the fes­ti­val step­ping off with the International Lantern Parade at twi­light. Drifting down into the town of Kailua-Kona, we set­tled into a local restau­rant on the main road for fish, fruity drinks, and a view. Beneath us on the street, the parade was just kick­ing off and I drifted down to take some pho­tos and enjoy the home­town parade. That is when I was struck by the epiphany that has influ­enced every thought I have had about Kona since.

At face value, the parade was like any other small town cel­e­bra­tion, not unlike the Strawberry Festival on my own Vashon Island. High School bands, Rotary mem­bers, and beauty queens. But, here also was some­thing much dif­fer­ent, some­thing I cer­tainly have never seen in the States and nowhere I have been in cof­fee inter­na­tion­ally. To these peo­ple, the cof­fee crop had been ele­vated into part of a nat­u­ral­is­tic reli­gion, a cel­e­bra­tion of the har­vest, and excla­ma­tions of appre­ci­a­tion and joy to the gods that bring forth coffee.

Here was a cel­e­bra­tion of coffee’s part­ner­ship with nature that blesses the land and brings forth bounty. Part prim­i­tive part mod­ern, part pagan part Christian; the peo­ple of Kona were demon­strat­ing how deep and com­plex were their rela­tion­ships with coffee.

The parade, spon­sored by UCC, which was a large pres­ence in Kona, was very rem­i­nis­cent of the Shinto rice-planting cer­e­monies and the rice-pounding mochi fes­ti­val at har­vest; a moment of thanks­giv­ing and cel­e­bra­tion for the crop.

From that point on this trip to ori­gin became some­thing wholly dif­fer­ent.

Kona Coffee in Hawai’i is pri­mar­ily a
com­mer­cial enter­prise
Centered in Holualoa vil­lage on the side of the moun­tain above Kailua-Kona, the com­pact grow­ing area is about 3 miles wide and about 20 miles long. Situated at about 450 meters alti­tude, the main road, Hwy. 180 (Mamalahoa Hwy.) is the cen­ter of the cof­fee grow­ing area. Along this road are big enter­prises such as the UCC com­plex and Greenwell Farms as well as numer­ous small farms and farm retail outlets.

When we first came upon this town, it was rain­ing, of course. We were attend­ing the 12^th Annual Holualoa Village Coffee and Art Stroll. The rain, if any­thing, seemed to enhance the charm and age of the place. There is his­tory here. The street was lined with small tem­po­rary canopies serv­ing, and sell­ing, Kona cof­fee. One of our hosts, Hapaki Farm was serv­ing cof­fee from their family’s farm. The matri­arch of the fam­ily, know as Grandma, is sur­rounded by her fam­ily. Their farm is on the North side of the first lava flow from the 1950 erup­tion of Mauna Loa. They began farm­ing the land in 1994, dig­ging into the “vir­gin” lava to plant their cof­fee trees. In many ways, the expe­ri­ence of Grandma and her fam­ily is a para­ble for the entire grow­ing region.

The Kona region devel­oped from two remark­ably dif­fer­ent direc­tions. First under­taken by Asian farm­ers, the pop­u­la­tion of grow­ers evolved into a diverse group of dif­fer­ent tra­di­tional farm­ing cul­tures. The Second direc­tion of devel­op­ment came from the US main­land as young men and women came to the island seek­ing a more sim­ple way of life. For them, set­tling into Kona to raise cof­fee was a lifestyle choice. Today, this farm­ing com­mu­nity is a beau­ti­ful mix of nation­al­i­ties and cul­tures with dif­fer­ent moti­va­tions and skills who have become one through a sin­gle pur­pose and value set.

The entire Hawaiian cof­fee grow­ing areas pro­duce about 4 mil­lion pounds of cof­fee per year. Most of this cof­fee is blended into other cof­fees. It is legal to call cof­fee that con­tains 10% Kona cof­fee “Kona Blend.” This is frus­trat­ing to farm­ers seek­ing the purity of the des­ig­na­tion, and the asso­ci­ated price that goes with it, but is per­fectly ratio­nal to oth­ers who ques­tion the abil­ity of Hawaiian farm­ers to find a mar­ket for that much high-priced cof­fee.  The cost and avail­abil­ity of labor as well as US and Hawaiian agri­cul­ture reg­u­la­tory require­ments are major con­trib­u­tors to the high price of Kona and detri­ments in the pro­duc­tion of world-class cof­fees. Because of this, the grow­ers typ­i­cally only do two major pick­ings; prun­ings and after-harvest ground clean up do not always hap­pen. This can lead to reduced yields, fun­gus and pest infes­ta­tions, and weed intru­sion, as well as low ripe:unripe ratios.

Most of the cof­fee grow­ers in Hawai’i, espe­cially in Kona, are not rely­ing on the grow­ing of cof­fee as their sole source of income. In many ways, this weak­ens the urge to improve qual­ity. The expe­ri­ence of the cof­fee farmer in Kona is that they are able to gain a high price for the cof­fee they pro­duce already so the moti­va­tion to improve qual­ity through prac­tices and invest­ment is not high. There are how­ever notable excep­tions to this.

One is Hula Daddy Kona Coffee. At first glance this seems like a typ­i­cal tourist focused retail oper­a­tion along the Mamalahoa Highway but hid­den behind their build­ing is a vital and focused cof­fee oper­a­tion tak­ing cof­fee from crop to cup. Owners Lee and Karen Paterson are con­tin­u­ally seek­ing to improve their vari­etal stock to pro­duce supe­rior cof­fee. A major weapon at their dis­posal is R. Miguel Meza, a world-renowned roaster and farm man­ager. One of their cof­fees recently scored a 93 on the Coffee Review.

Another is Arianna Farms ‘Ono Kona Coffee owned and oper­ated by Sharon Wood and Robert Wood. This remark­able cou­ple, Sharon is a PhD and Robert is a MD, is very par­tic­u­lar about how they run their farm. Using the lat­est hor­ti­cul­tural prac­tices, they have lifted the grow­ing of Kona to new heights. Operating a large nurs­ery and graft­ing oper­a­tion they intend to rede­fine the level of qual­ity and plant har­di­ness in Kona. Dedicated to invest­ing into the future on their farm, Sharon and Robert fully plan to make Kona Coffee a prof­itable occu­pa­tion by pro­duc­ing the high­est qual­ity cof­fee and estab­lish­ing ver­ti­cal inte­gra­tion of distribution.

And then there is Mountain Thunder, tow­er­ing high above the rest of the Kona Growing dis­trict at 1100 meters, the high­est in Hawai’i. This full pro­duc­tion farm is more rem­i­nis­cent of Central American farms than the other Kona prop­er­ties. Terraced down steep moun­tain hill­sides with a canopy of Kaloko nut trees, pop­u­lated by pigs, bur­ros, and geese, shot through with dark fore­bod­ing lava tubes that look straight out of an Indiana Jones movie; this large farm has the gritty marks of a well run cof­fee oper­a­tion. Multiple vari­eties, guava trees in the mid­dle canopy, ani­mal manure and veg­e­ta­tive com­post­ing, and wet and dry pro­cess­ing gives the clear impres­sion that here is no pre­tense – this is a cof­fee farm, period. Except for a small gift shop packed into used ship­ping con­tain­ers there is no notice­able nod to com­mer­cial­ism. After our tour, Trent offered us a lunch that we shared with the fam­ily tak­ing a break from the hard work of run­ning the farm. Mountain Thunder is open for tours, but at arms length – they have a cof­fee oper­a­tion to run.

Mountain Thunder is one of this year’s recip­i­ents of the Good Food award, a national award given in recog­ni­tion of their ongo­ing efforts to main­tain the high­est qual­ity stan­dards while pro­duc­ing nat­ural and health con­scious foods.

This place is so…Hawaiian
The sense of ‘place’ about the Kona grow­ing region per­me­ates all aspects of the Kailua-Kona region. King Kamehameha the Great who united all the islands held this land as his per­sonal estates. The his­tory of this place is the his­tory of Hawai’i until the ter­ri­to­r­ial acqui­si­tion of the United States. Here is Captain Cook’s grave, the old­est non-Hawaiian set­tle­ment, the seat of the Hawaiian king­dom, and much more. Bordering the Sheraton Keauhoa Bay Hotel is an ancient bat­tle­ground were the cairns of 300 war­riors stand silent tes­ta­ment to Hawai’i’s vio­lent past.
As we wrap up our trip to Kona, we dine at the leg­endary and extra­or­di­nary Huggo’s perched over the bay at Kailua-Kona and, while enjoy­ing a meal pre­pared by mas­ter chef Laine Uchida at sun­set, it is easy to men­tally walk back into time as the Pacific waves wash the rugged lava shore. If you stand to the deck rail and lis­ten into the wind, there you will find the mys­tery and romance of Kona – the age­less spir­i­tual pres­ence of this place and its Kona Coffee.