Description
This family owned and operated coffee farm is nestled in the picturesque slopes of one of Hawaii’s active volcanos – Mauna Loa – overlooking the Historical Kealakekua Bay. It is located in Captain Cook village in the heart of Kona Coffee Belt. It is an old traditionally terraced Japanese farm that thrived for generations. When they bought the land it was sadly abandoned and neglected for over a decade. They worked hard to bring back the farm to its old glory. Cleared the land of unwanted plants and trees, they weeded, pruned and fertilized those 80 year old coffee trees and it is very rewarding to see their lush, shiny, green leaves today.
They work only with organic products and do not use pesticides of any kind.
The 6 acres of land is with many fruit trees, apple bananas, mangoes, lychees, papayas, avocados, mountain apples, persimmons, cherimoyas, nonis, ulus (bread fruit), citruses and guavas. They sell those seasonal fruits freshly picked on the local market. They harvest guavas to make delicious jam. The upper part of the property was mostly a tropical forest, so they cleared and terraced 2 acres and planted new grafted trees. They should produce coffee already next year, but they would be in full in about 5 years.
They left some patches of undisturbed land to steep to be tamed and terraced, only removing invasive unwanted species. This natural habitat will one day be a beautiful guava forest with all kinds of wild ginger and many different kinds of ferns. They want the farm to be as healthy and productive as beautiful.
Tasting Notes:
A wonderful tasting Kona grown from a unique to Kona strain: Red Bourbon. Much sweeter and slightly more floral than the traditional Typica strain, gentle winy acidity upfront balancing with soft and smooth nutty and chocolate like tones. A hint of caramel if you get lucky on the roast. A little higher acidity than the Hala Tree Extra Fancy Typica, but would still be considered a medium to low acidity coffee. The cup is best at the light-medium roast levels: clean, sweet and balanced. Still a very tasty cup at darker roasts but will lose the delicate balance turning the cup into more potent chocolate like tones leaning on the bitter-sweet side.
Roasting Notes:
This strain is smaller beaned than the Typica, most would say small-medium sized compared to most Kona coffees but all in all about average for coffee as a whole. Beautiful prep, even roasting with medium to low chaff levels. Shoot for a medium roast but good to error a little lighter than darker on the roast, try to make sure your all the way though first crack, if you get too close to or touching 2nd crack, many of the cool flavors will be covered up. A little longer setup time helps the cup shine.
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