GrowingCoffee

Growing the Coffee Cherry

Around December of each year, we get a rain that starts a gestation process for the coffee trees. It takes about 7 months from the initial white cherry blossoms to mature into cranberry-colored coffee cherry.

During this time, our awesome farmworkers are nurturing the trees with fertilizer, water, pruning, suckering, mowing, weeding, chasing pigs, and other forms of horticultural attention.

Harvest season starts (for us) in mid-August and runs through mid-January of each year - depending upon the previous year’s rainfall.

Hawaii is the only place in the United States in which coffee is grown. By law, only beans grown in the regions of North and South Kona can be called "Kona Coffee". Coffee grown elsewhere - even in Hawaii - cannot be called Kona Coffee. Kona coffee comprises only 1% of all of the coffee grown in the world!

Coffee farming in Kona dates back to 1828, with trees that were started with cuttings taken from coffee trees in South America.

Slideshow of our Coffee Harvest!

Kona's Coffee Belt is roughly 1 mile wide by 30 miles long, and is located on the western slopes of two volcanoes - Hualalai and Mauna Loa - and ranges in elevation from 500-3,000 feet. This region offers agricultural conditions ideal for cultivating a coffee bean unmatched in full, rich flavor and smoothness.

Coffee trees thrive in this fertile volcanic soil. The cycle of bright sunny mornings, cloud- covered rainy afternoons, and mild nights, creates ideal growing conditions for the trees and contributes to the slow growth, large size, and intense coffee flavor and aroma of Kona coffee beans.