Coffee Tasting Judges Caught in the Act

The Kona Coffee Cultural Festival has captured our attention this last month, and for good reason.  The Gevalia Kona Coffee Cupping Competition honors the top three coffee farms in Kona each year in a process infused with the integrity of an international panel of judges who are experts at coffee.  Each farm provides 50 pounds of parchment from which a sample is milled and roasted.  The coffee is rated on fragrance, aroma, taste, nose and body.  The judging is completely blind, with the judges having no idea which coffee farm they are tasting.

Above and below we see the judges hard at work, their refined pallettes discerningly sifting through the finer aspects of our contesting coffees with a dedication to quality and the integrity of the process.  The Devil Dog hails this years winners and all the coffee farms of Kona who continue to produce this hand crafted artisan product, and encourages you to order Kona coffee from these archetypes of American agriculture, the individual farmer crafting his single vineyard estate coffee like a fine winemaker in Napa or Sonoma.

Pau Hana Estate Ripe Coffee Cherry

Sandy and Carol at Pau Hana Estate coffee sent me this amazing picture of their coffee cherry just as it is ripe enough to be picked.  You may remember they have 4 acres at the top of Koa Road, won 2nd place in the Gevalia cup in 2006, and are the descendent farm of legendary Woods Estate.  Sandy and Carol produce a consistently excellent product on their amazing organic farm, set in an incredibly beautiful location, with separate pastures of coffee trees above and below their house, high in the hills above Captain Cook. 

Check out Pau Hana Estates at www.pauhanaestate.com. or call them at 808 328 8099

Left Coast Farm...Long Mountain Coffee

Kim Johnson epitomizes the core values of the Kona Coffee farmer.  She runs Left Coast Farm like a one man band, and yet this three acre plot of heaven in the rising slopes of Honaunau is one of Kona's finest coffees.  Left Coast Farm won second place in the Gevalia Cup in 2005, and she grows, harvests, packages and markets her coffee under two brands, Left Coast Farm and Long Mountain Coffee.  While her husband Lewis continues his work at USC in Los Angeles, Kim is in Honaunau for extended periods running the farm from their amazing bungalow in the sky high above Kealekekua Bay and the City of Refuge, 2000 vertical feet below.

Kim is extremely active in the Kona Coffee community, and makes the most of her coffee growing enterprise, tirelessly keeping the farm going while upgrading both the cottage and the tending to the triangular forest of  coffee trees. Above you see the view from the back porch of her bungalow, looking down towards the ocean.

Here is Kim standing on the other end of that porch, a recent addition to the house, next to an Oheo Tree column from the notable hardwood tree felled on her property a year ago.  Kim produces around 3000 pounds of coffee a year, and its quality is consistently amazing.  The farm is actually on the lower slopes of Mauna Loa volcano, hence the name for one brand, for Mauna Loa means Long Mountain in Hawaiian. The label for Long Mountain Coffee is meant to resemble a wine bottle, and this is fitting, as the boutique coffee chateaus of Honaunau are to coffee what the small boutique wineries of Napa and Sonoma are to wine. Her Left Coast Farm brand comes in a vibrant cloth bag, but both brands reveal their true colors when brewed and poured in a cup, a sumptuous, rich, full bodied coffee with a glowing aroma and a deep smooth taste. Kim is a vibrant hard working and captivating woman who enjoys the challenge of running a coffee farm and is no stranger to hard work and long hours.  

You can find Left Coast Farm and Long Mountain Coffee on the internet at two websites: www.leftcoastfarm.com and www.longmountainkona.com or call 808 328 9039.

Kona Rain Forest Farms

Kona Rain Forest Farms is, without question, the Devil Dog's favorite Kona Coffee.  This is casting no aspersions on the numerous other amazing coffee farms in Kona, which are abundant in quality and devotion to their craft, but Kona Rain Forest Farms, for the Devil Dog, has a significant qualitative twist that sets it apart....the roasting. Set in the far southern reaches of Honaunau, at mile marker 95, Kona Rain Forest Farms roasts its orders on Monday, and ships them out Monday night, so when you receive your order on Wednesday it practically leaps from the bag.  The freshness and aroma when you open the bag is intoxicating, the taste is extraordinary, the quality speaks for itself.  Kona Rain Forest came in third place this year in the Gevalia Cup competition, its first time finishing in the top three, though it has been a finalist several times.  Most importantly, Kona Rain Forest Farms was selected from a number of estate coffees to be served at the White House on special occasions, the first time for the National Governors Conference three years ago.  Since then the White House has ordered Kona Rain Forest Farms  coffee another 10 times or so, and with Hawaii native Barack Obama taking office in January the Devil Dog sees no reason to expect it to change.

Owners Robert and Dawn Barnes have owned the farm since shortly after that first order, having been trained in its operation by original owners Howard and Stephanie Conant. Howard and Stephanie were ardent ocean going sailors, having taken numerous trips from Australia to California in their 51 foot aluminum sailboat before settling in Kona and carving out the coffee farm from the virgin rain forest. Robert and Dawn have continued their meticulous organic tradition and taken it to the next level, expanding the coffee acreage from 5 to 9 acres, instituting reforms in cultivation and processing, while maintaining an excellence and attention to detail that is unsurpassed in quality and consistency.

Kona Rain Forest Farms coffee can be purchased over the internet at www.konarainforest.com or by phone at 808 329 1941.

The farm itself is 20 acres or more, with a guest house on the property that is available for rental. Set at 2200 feet above sea level, the farm has coffee trees growing in several fields both above the main house on a rising peak and in a natural bowl, and below the mill and roasting house in a sloping extravaganza of extraordinary beauty. It truly feels like a different planet, an oasis of amazing beauty with a crop of incredible richness.

Last year Robert and Dawn sold almost 50,000 pounds of their coffee, an amazing feat in terms of keeping their quality so high while expanding their production. They had spent 18 years in Papua New Guinea learning and teaching indigenous languages, building and maintaining health clinics before returning to Seattle, building and selling several internet businesses, and then buying Kona Rain Forest from Howard and Stephanie.  Howard would not sell to just anyone. He had built this from scratch and passed on his techniques to Robert and Dawn, effectively apprenticing them to assure the continued growth and success of Kona Rain Forest. He succeeded magnificently.  

Above you see their Hashi Danna where the beans are dried before milling.  Below is Robert and Dawn standing on the porch of their house as the Pacific Ocean stands ourt in the distance below.

Kona Rain Forest Farms is the peak of what Kona Coffee is all about.  The Devil Dog urges you to check out their web site, www.konarainforest.com, and order some coffee. Like all 100% Kona coffee, it is an extraordinary product, only more so.  

Honaunau House in the Sky

Mystical magical Honaunau is an amazing place, and the Devil Dog has frequently imagined the joy of living in a house set high above the trees with a commanding view of the rain forest and the ocean below.  There are a lot of them there....like this house.  Just above Left Coast Farms, one of my favorite coffee farms, sits the home of owner Kim Johnson's neighbor, a beautiful isolated structure with a commanding view of  all that lies about and beyond. The coffee trees build to a peak and surround this glory of a home that sits like a castle in the sky in the radiant sunlight of a brilliant day.

Kuaiwi Farm -Una and Leon

Una Greenaway and Leon Rosner have a Kona Coffee pedigree that is hard to beat.  Last year Kuaiwi Farm won  the Gevalia Cup, placing first by a wide margin, and this year they placed second.  The consistent excellence of their coffee owes as much to the integrity of their organic farming as to the rich soil of their incredible location.  Kuaiwi Farm is in Captain Cook, up Koa Road and tucked away into a five acre corner of the mountain off Bamboo Road.  Their neighbors have pedigree too - award winning coffees J Yokoyoma (Kona Bob), Pau Hana Coffee and Koa Farms are all on this same ahupuaa, this same wedge of land.  In the picture above you can see Una And Leon with a 100 pound bag of green coffee. 

Una and Leon are meticulous about their coffee, picking the beans themselves at the peak of ripeness.  Their coffee can be ordered over the internet at www.kuaiwifarm.com or by calling 808 - 328- 8888.  Above you see Una out among her coffee trees.                                                      

There is much more to their farm than coffee. They grow taro, cocao, and make their own chocolate, macadamia nut butter, and lilikoi (passion fruit) jelly, all of which can be ordered over the internet. They live in two geodesic domes attached by a connective structure.  The Devil Dog was amazed at the beauty of their property, their sheer determination to live in paradise on terms that are at one with their natural environment. It is an idyllic, committed, joyous and hard working existence.

Their property even contains a number of jaboticaba trees, a South American fruit similar to acai, whose fruit grows right on the bark of the tree, as seen in the picture above, and which tastes indescribably delicious, like a ripe plum meets a concord grape.

Una and Leon will produce about 1500 pounds of ultra quality coffee, which they call Kona Old Style, and  which almost always sells out every season.  In addition to their stellar achievement in and commitment to Kona coffee they exemplify a lifestyle that is in sync with the very essence of what modern life in Hawaii can be if you seek it out.

The day the Devil Dog showed up they were making chocolate in the kitchen....actual chocolate from cacao they grow themselves, an enormously special and complicated process involving harvesting and fermenting the cacao bean.  You say you never saw a cacao bean before.  Neither had the Devil Dog.  Thats it in the picture above, a particularly large and ripe pod from one of many cacao trees on their farm

Be sure to visit their website....www.kuaiwifarm.com.    Mahalo.

Da Kine Coffee Bean

One of my all time favorite Kona Coffee's is Terry Fitzgerald's Da Kine Coffee Bean, winner of the prestigious Gevalia Cup in 1997.   Terry is one of the true original pioneers in the resurgence of Kona Coffee.  He came to Kona in 1970, an itinerant geo-physicist and Kerouac inspired hippie, found an old overgrown coffee farm in the highlands of Honaunau, 1.2 miles up a twisting trail above the Hawaiian Telephone switching station, and restored the farm to a functioning, flourishing coffee plantation.

Terry has 4 acres of coffee, and to prove the land and soil is no fluke, his neighbor on the mountain, Pat Pearlman, won the Gevalia Cup for her farm exactly 10 years after Terry.  Terry is one of the true spirits of Ohana (family) in Kona Coffee, and he retains an air of regal self awareness in one of the most beautiful spots in Hawaii.  In the picture above you see Terry raking his beans on the roof of his house, in a Japanese platform called a hashi dani. 

Terry's coffee is available over the internet at www.dakinecoffeebean.com or by calling 808 - 328 - 8716.  He has kept his prices amazingly low compared to his competitors.  I asked him why and he said "We make a pretty good living and I just like to jeep my prices where people can afford them".  Terry produces about 5000 pounds of coffee a year.  This is one of the all time great Kona Coffees and a perfect Christmas gift.

We have a Winner

The Devil Dog was there this afternoon when this years Gevalia Cup winners were announced at the Outrigger Keauhou Resort Hotel on the ocean in Kona where King Kalakau had a beach home in the 1880's and very near where King Kamehameha III was born .  56 classic entries and 12 Crown Estates (larger farms) competed to be the best of Kona Coffee, 100% Kona Coffee, individual estates where a farmer grows, processes, markets and sells his hand crafted product in much the way that great winemakers craft their wine in Napa and Sonoma.

The winner this year was Debbie Hoshide of Hoshide Farms in far southern Honaunau.  Debbie was overwhelmed by the victory, which was completely unexpected. You see Debbie doesn't even have a private label product. She sells all her product to Greenwell Farms, all 7000 pounds of it, where it was packed and sold along with Tommy's beans as Greenwell Farms. Well count this as a victory for Tommy as well for it speaks well as to the quality of his product.  But Tommy will soon be issuing a Hoshide Farms sub-brand, or Debbie will be putting out one herself, for demand will soar.  Congratulations to a woman with a fine plot of land that becomes the southernmost farm to win in the history of the Gevalia.

Second place went to Una Greenaway and her husband Leon and their Kuaiwi Farm, last years first place winner. Leon and Una are in Captain Cook, and their organic farm showed its chops again this year, but why not. These people are a rock of integrity in Kona Coffee, living in geodesic domes an 4 acres of sheer heaven up Koa Rd, and back into a corner of the mountain off Bamboo Road.

The third place finisher is actually one of my favorite coffee farms in all of Kona,  Kona Rain Forest Farms, and their owners Robert and Dawn Barnes, whose farms lies even further south than Hoshide frams, at mile marker 95. Though it is their first top three finish in the history of Kona Rain Forest coffee they have the distinction of having been chosen to be served on multiple occasions at special functions at the White House. Among other reasons....they roast on Monday and ship it to you Monday night. When you open that bag on Wednesday its like a special love delivery.  We'll visit them later.

The Crown title for larger farms, who will sell 3000 pounds of their coffee on Gevalia's website in a special co-branding, went to Kowali Farm, 10 acres of dedication farmed by Rita for the last 32 years, and a deserving  farm that is actually small by comparison to the size of its competitors in this category.

Congratulations to all the winners. The Devil Dog is thrilled to know two of these winning growers well, and will go further into the farms and environs of many of his favorite farmers in future posts.

 

Ahupuaa

 Hawaiians traditionally divided the land into Ahupuaa, a wedge like pie shaped geographical division that stretched from the ocean at its widest to the top of the local mountain at its apex.  This way a given chief would have fish ponds and ocean for fishing and harvesting, lowlands for agriculture and highlands for hunting, providing all their needs.

During the current Kona Coffee Cupping competition the 16 semifinalists in the classic division were announced and there was several striking similarities which we call the Ahupuaa difference, and which we have seen as a similarity in past winners.  4 semifinalists came from the Keauhou region, and all four farms were literally right next door to each other - Buddhas Cup Estate, Imagine Coffee, Kona Earth and in the Crown (big farm) division, Kona Kulana farms. In addition, last years 2nd place winner, Malia Ohana, is right next door to these 4 farms.  Thus the Keauhou Ahupuaa is definitely a stand out for Kona Coffee this year, particularly when you consider that the old Kulana farm won the Gevalia cup twice in the  1990's.

Similarly, in Captain Cook, last years first place farm, Kuaiwi Farm, and third place farm J. Yokoyama, are literally 500 yards apart off Koa road, Just above them is previous winners Pau Hana Coffee and Koa Coffee, thus making what we can call the Captain Cook or Koa Ahupuaa a significant coffee land area.  Further down in Honaunau, on one stretch of land off of what is called Telephone Trunk road, a twisting barely paved trail leading miles up into the rainforest, named after the Hawaiian Telephone building off Hwy. 11, is Terry Fitzgeralds Da Kine Coffee Farm, winner of the Gevalia cup in 1997, and right next door to Terry's place, literally across a trail and adjoining his land, is Pat Pearlman's Pearl Estate coffee, which won the Gevalia Cup two years ago, making them, in my mind, the Lafite and Margaux of Kona Coffee and making the Telephone trunk line a star studded Ahupuaa of its own.

Its just a theory, and elevation and other factors could easily be at work, but soil and terroir of a similar Ahupuaa could be a predictive factor in high quality coffee. We will find out today when the winners are announced. STAY TUNED!!!

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.

Welcome to the Kona Coffee Festival

The Devil Dog is in Kona, at the luxurious Sheraton Keauhou Hotel, on a beautiful promontory right on the ocean, and home of the Kona Coffee Cupping Competition and the prestigious Gevalia Cup, awarded to the best coffee farm in Kona.  Kona is the Napa and Sonoma of coffee, home to hundred of boutique farmers who grow, harvest package, market and sell their product directly from the tree to you.  Below is the view outside my hotel room, as waves crash against the rocks in an epic tableau that has gone on for a millennium.

We will cover the festival and all its attendant events on a daily basis, visiting individual farms, taking in the sights of Honaunau, Kealekekua, Holualoa and Captain Cook, culminating in the competition later this week and the crowning of the winner of the Gevalia Cup.