Search This Blog

Travel Blog

Travel Blog
Fasten your seatbelts it's going to be a fun ride

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

The Kona Coffee Coast

Mom loves coffee. She can't live without it and she does it right....single cup drip. So I knew I wouldn't be as welcome if I didn't arrive with a bag of Kona coffee.

I spent some time online searching for a unique, small producer of Kona coffee on the Big Island and found Makahiki Farms.

A few emails later with Jonathan Sechrist I worked out a time to stop by and see it from start to finish.

The front gate.

The coffee plants


New buds of growth


And the green coffee beans in their husks


They prune the branches carefully between harvests


The drying area


The husker


The green beans by quality, extra fancy, fancy and estate.


Basically the quality and size of the bean


The very cool roaster



And the different roasts from Sunshine to French


I bought a bag of Sunshine (the lightest roast they do) and a medium roast for mom. Jonathan explained that more and more growers and roasters are moving to lighter roasts so you can actually taste the coffee and the different flavors it naturally has, similar to say a wine that will have hints of blackberry or oak.

It was a fun visit before my very scary but very fun Black Water Dive with Big Island Divers.
When you click on Black Water Dive (in blue above) you'll see a page with 3 videos. Click the bottom left one and at 1.24 time is the thing I spotted.

Farewell Hawaii....Quebec here I come!