Mark Twain stated it so eloquently, "Kona Coffee has a richer
flavor than any other, be it grown where it may and call it by what name
you please." ~ 1866, Letters from Hawaii.
The site is stunning from the air as Mauna Kea and
Mauna Loa, two of the volcanic mountains that form the Big Island of
Hawaii, thrust up from out of the crystalline ocean, god-like in their
grandeur. Along the southwestern slopes of the Mauna Loa, hidden somewhere
in all the volcanic mountain tops, lava beds and greenery, exists a
coffee lovers paradise - The Kona Coffee Belt, a cluster of farms that
for more than a century have hand cultivated small crops of rich gourmet
beans that are among the most treasured in the world.
The Kona Coffee Belt is sparsely populated and home to
many immigrants: Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, Samoans and "Haoles",
the term used to refer to Caucasians with roots deep in Hawaiian soil,
many third and fourth generation coffee farmers with extraordinary stories.
It seems among the residents, no matter their ethnic origins, they
all know each other and work together in perfect harmony, sharing one common
bond: their passion for Kona Coffee. For the farmers it’s more
than coffee: it’s a way of life. The "Aloha
Spirit" is
captured in the passion for meticulous painstaking work, growing, cultivating
and processing prized Kona Coffee. The Kona Coffee belt, marked 180 on
the highway map, is home to more than 500 farms, most of which are only
3 to 5 acres having only modest facilities and equipment. These farms
total, approximately, 2000 acres of planted coffee, which annually yields
up to six million pounds of beans. Brazil, on the other hand, accounts
for more than 1 billion pounds of beans per year.
In the springtime, mature coffee trees burst into
bloom, covering the landscape with fragrant white blossoms. Coffee
trees can take up to 5 years to mature and the older plants yield a
better and richer flavored bean. From the time of blossom on, teams
of skilled workers tend meticulously to each plant. They prune, water
and manage soil content, pest control and exposure to sunlight of each
branch loaded with buds. During the growing period, each plant will
receive ongoing personal attention and grooming, and that's just the
beginning.
Kona's coffee berries are harvested one at a time at
the peak of their ripeness. Beginning in the late summer, the picking
teams inspect every plant and every cherry. When the cherry is ripe,
with the proper color of deep rich red, only then is it deemed ready
to pick. Even on the same branch, the cherries will ripen at a varying
pace. The teams of pickers spend days evaluating and selecting each
cherry until they are all in. When the cherries are ripe, each tree
will only produce about one pound of coffee annually!
This individualized attention continues into the processing.
After picking, a procedure called pulping removes the outer red skin
and brings forth the precious seed inside, usually two seeds to each
cherry. Pulping is the key step in processing of Kona Coffee.
Before the beans can be sold, they must undergo stringent
grading standards. Following milling, beans are sorted by size in
preparation for grading. Beans are graded into one of the following
categories: Extra
Fancy, Fancy, #1, Prime, and X. The Kona Coffee council
and Hawaii's Department of Agriculture have developed strict certification
standards that must be applied to every bean. These standards are
designed to protect the consumer and to protect the integrity of the
Kona product. The process demands workers with enormous skill, patience
and experience. The workers in Kona all have these qualities and paying
them costs.
In its' green state, coffee beans don’t really give a hint of what
their true individual aromatic characteristics will be ….not until
they're roasted, that is! The ideal roasting time can vary depending
on each individual variety of bean. During the roasting process, coffee
beans expand in size while reducing in weight, as moisture is lost from
the green bean. Complex chemical changes also occur as soluble oils are
developed and released and sugars inside the bean begin to caramelize.
The roasting of these sugars is what gives the coffee its distinct taste
and rich brown color. Caffeine gases are also released from the bean
during roasting. The longer the beans are roasted, the more caffeine
gasses are actually released. Thus, dark roast coffees actually tend
to have less caffeine than a light roast!
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The Big Island :
Growth:
Roasting: