The Pink Palace of Holualoa

Not everything in Hawaii is glamorous, but whole swaths of it are still authentic.  There is little more authentic than the pink palace of Holualoa, the charming Kona Hotel, a landmark that beckons back to an age on the Big island when there were no "resorts", when the Kona Inn downtown was the fanciest hotel in town, and the plans landed on what is now the baseball diamond near the wharf, and you could only get to Kona Village by boat, and Holualoa was a sleepy town filled with Japanese families working the land.  Then the pink palace, as the Devil Dog likes to call it, was the only game in town, an essential way station on the high road to Holuloa.

Today, as you can see, it is still filled with locals, perhaps less busy as a hotel (altho it still is a working functioning hotel) and it certainly harkens back to a simpler age, when local hotels run by families were the norm and mega resorts were the non existent exception.  Now the Devil Dog loves his mega resorts as much as the next guy, but you can't help but be charmed by the genuine relic that remains the pink palace of Holualoa.

Holualoa Church

At this Christmas season its nice to reflect on the real meaning of Christmas, a celebration of the human spirit that is found in humble beauty and the simple pleasures of being alive on the planet.  Thats one of the things I love about Hawaii, that you are never more than a millisecond from realizing the beauty and joy all around you. 

This tiny church in Holualoa is an example.  Its a simple wooden structure with an amazing view from its back balcony and a stirring presence in the middle of this tiny highland village. The congregation is young, the pastor is vigorous and engaging and the services are well attended. It is fittingly called the Living Hope Church.  More than that it is a very pretty church in the middle of paradise, and in this season of holiday madness is a symbol of where spirituality really lives, and that is in the beauty of each moment we take the time to appreciate..

Keiki in the street

The kids were out in force at the Holualoa Coffee and Art Stroll street festival. Above a young girl sits in front a coffee cherry laurel wreath, while below two young girls perform a hula while their grandmother accompanies them on the ukulele.

Keiki is Hawaiian for child or little, and it is always nice to see the keiki out in the street taking part in the cultural life of the islands as traditions are passed on to a new generation.

Saturday afternoon .....Holualoa Street Festival

Holualoa is the sleepiest of towns, an art colony, a lovely village in the sky and the site of the Holualoa Street Fest on the first Saturday of the Kona Coffee Cultural Festival... Coffee farms from Holualoa to Honaunau display their wares in kiosks and the street fills with people. For Boutique coffee farms of unquestionable pedigree and single vineyard distinction it is  an opportunity to gather together, for much of coffee selling is an internet affair. But its quite lovely, and lets you visit with and taste the wares of dozens of fabulous Kona coffee farms

Holualoa was where coffee farming was revived by japanese farmers in the 1890's.  The people in the picture above, the owners and progenitors of Waiaha River Coffee Company, are the third generation of their family to grow and sell this coffee, direct descendents of the original farmers.

The former buddhist temple in Holualoa has been turned into a private residence in the middle of town, but what a beautiful cottage in the sky.

Holualoa Street Fest

The tiny village of Holualoa was the kick off point for the Kona Coffee Cultural Festival, as a street fair was held in the artists colony high above the town of Kona.  Holualoa was where coffee cultivation began in Kona over 100 years ago as Japanese laborers, newly freed from indentured servitude in the cane and pineapple fields of the islands and facing discrimination in hiring and lacking jobs began cultivating coffee in the highlands here.  

Now 100 years later Kona Coffee has become a highly specialized gourmet product grown by over 600 farmers, who range from aging (OK, mature) hippies, to third generation Japanese families, to neuveau riche investors, to retirees seeking a lifestyle of gentleman farmer, to everything in between.  The bottom line is that Kona Coffee is the best coffee on the planet, and with dozens of highly sophisticated organic farms producing between 1000 lbs to, say 10,000 pounds a year of this amazing product, it is not an exageration to call them the Boutique Coffee Chateaus of Holualoa, Kealekekua, Captain Cook and Honaunau.  

The Devil Dog knows many of these farmers individually and has been buying their product over the internet for years. A pound of 100% Kona Coffee can range from $20 - $36  and is well worth the cost. You routinely pay $50 or more for a bottle of good wine and its gone in a night. A pound of coffee may last you weeks or more, depending on how you drink it, and you will never taste coffee like this. 

Make sure you buy ONLY 100% Kona coffee from individual farms. There is a glut of an inferior product called Kona Blend which IS ONLY 10% Kona coffee and 90% inferior south and central american beans.  This is an ongoing scandal denigrating and despoiling the beauty of 100% Kona coffee. You wouldn't take a bottle of Chateau Lafite and blend it with a bottle of Sebastiani table wine. The Devil Dog is emphatic on this point:  ONLY BUY 100% Kona Coffee direct from the coffee maker. Support real farmers who craft their product the way real winemakers craft their wine. More on this as our week progresses.