Date: Thu, 18 Dec 1997 05:54:10 GMT Server: Apache/1.2.4 Connection: close Content-Type: text/html Mauna Loa: Kona Coffee Captured Hawai`i
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Kona Coffee: A Hawaiian story

Coffee grown on the volcanic slopes of Kona has become a burgeoning industry for people who moved to Hawai`i from around the world during the last century. Family coffee farms, which followed the introduction of coffee in 1828 from Brazil, remain the standard, having created an entrepreneurial enterprise for independent farmers who blended into Hawaiian life with their many cultures from Asia and Europe.

In the early days, Hawaiians planted coffee under kukui trees (candlenut trees) to give the young plants some shade. As the cultivation techniques and selection of varieties improved, Japanese, Chinese and Hawaiian farmers chose coffee to be their crop and it became a family business. Schools on Halualoa, Kainaliu, Kealakekua, Captain Cook and other mountain towns above the Kona Coast let the students take days off for coffee picking time. Donkeys became the transportation for hauling 100-pound bags out of the fields and packing in seedlings and fertilizers for new cultivation. After World War II brought jeeps to Hawai`i the jeep became the transporter and the donkeys went wild and formed herds of braying Kona Nightingales that can still be seen and heard as you travel on the Kona Coast.

Traditionally, once the coffee was picked, red meat was carefully removed by hand, and the beans were soaked and washed, to be dried in the sun and turned with rakes daily, for almost a week. The beans were hulled, polished and graded, taken to the roaster and bagged for the consumer.

While processing has become more mechanized, Kona coffee farming largely remains a labor of love and handiwork, as farmers tend their fields by walking and driving jeeps, and picking coffee by hand. Kona coffee brings an excellent price because it is rare, somewhat difficult to harvest, and its special flavor has been recognized for a very long time. Mark Twain wrote about Kona coffee when he visited Hawai`i. In 1886 he proclaimed that "Kona coffee has a richer flavor than any other."

Along with a few new coffees grown on other Hawaiian islands, Kona Coffee remains the only coffee grown in the United States. It is best grown from 800 feet to 2,000 feet in elevation along the Kona Coast, where afternoon clouds create a moist greenhouse environment that helps the dark green trees to thrive. The drier winter causes the coffee trees to bloom in Spring with white scented, snow-colored flowers. Moist summers provide the water the coffee beans need to develop their full-flavored ripeness.

Kona Coffee is hand-picked at the exact time the coffee bean is red and ready. Kona coffee pickers who compete in coffee picking events during the annual Kona Coffee Festival, are capable of taking only the ripe, choice cherries with incredible speed. A fast picker will bag 300 pounds a day, while an average picker will bring in 100 pounds. Mills in the hills of Kona advertise the price per pound offered to farmers and you can see them bringing in their harvest as you drive on Highways 11 and 180 along the Kona Coast.

Kona coffee farmers are particularly proud of their coffee's taste and they compete each year during a tasting contest sponsored by the Kona Coffee Festival, which draws coffee connoisseurs from around the world.

The major distributor of Kona Coffee for Big Island farmers is Mauna Loa's Royal Kona Coffee, with its coffee mill museum at Mauna Loa's Polynesian Visitor Center and Marketplace.

Located along Queen Ka`ahumanu Highway above Kealakekua Bay, its displays tell the story of coffee and provide an opportunity for tasting and purchasing from the many varieties of Kona Coffee.



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