About Kona Coffee

Why is 100% Kona coffee so special (and expensive)? 

Kona coffee is only grown on the Big Island of Hawai'i, in a corridor that is about 20 miles long and two miles wide. Kona coffee is grown nowhere else on earth and no one else can claim the Kona name, which is legendary among coffee lovers. Because of our volcanic soil, perfect sunshine and sweet rain, these coffee trees flourish and produce coffee that is smooth, has low acidity and no bitter “bite”. It rivals some of the best Ethiopian coffees in this regard. It’s good. It’s really, really good. 

The prized taste of Kona coffee is only part of the equation – its high price also comes from how it is grown and harvested. Unlike massive commercial farms in Central and South America, Kona coffee is grown by farmers like us, mostly small-scale family operations. This means that instead of using  machinery to prune our trees in the spring, it is done carefully and gently by hand. It also means that we are out in the field picking coffee by hand up to six or seven times a year, as each coffee cherry ripens at a different rate. The big commercial farms elsewhere in the world strip their trees bare and harvest all the coffee cherries at once, even green unripe cherries and even the yucky ones. They put it all into their products. Ick. 

Our family works this farm year-round. But we need help! Farm labor in most of the world means underpaying people. That’s why you can pick up a bag of commercially-produced inferior coffee for $6 a pound at your grocery store. We pay our farm workers a fair and negotiated wage. We also work alongside them, learning much from them (many have been caring for coffee farms here for over 20 years!). Paying a fair wage means that the coffee is more expensive and we make less profit. But we would rather treat people fairly and honor their experience and expertise. We think our fans would agree. 

We  are proud to create local jobs and we get the privilege of sharing amazing coffee with the world.  We are blessed to get to be a part of an industry that ties us to this beautiful land, to the culture of Kona coffee and to the heritage of coffee production in this place. 

If you want all of this in your morning brew, please support us in purchasing 100% Kona coffee. We are proud to be a member of the Kona Coffee Farmers Association and we ONLY grow and sell 100% Kona coffee. 

So, there you have it. There’s a lot going on in your cup of aloha! We hope you enjoy it!