Kona coffee is grown only in the Kona and South Kona districts on the Big Island of Hawaii. This unique and beautiful region is on the slopes of the active volcano , Mauna Loa, and further north on the now quiet but potentially active Hualalai volcano. In a region only 22 miles long by 2 miles wide, Kona coffee is produced on about 600 small independent farms. Farms average between 3 and 5 acres. On most days in the Kona region, you can depend on bright sunny mornings followed by an afternoon shaded by a canopy of protective clouds. Mild frost-free temperatures and volcanic soil produce a rich aroma and delicate but flavorful coffee.
A Limited Resource
Left on its own, a coffee tree can grow up to about 30 feet (10 meters) in height. To facilitate hand picking, coffee farmers trim trees to about 6 or 7 feet in height (2 meters). It takes about 2000 coffee beans to produce each pound ( .45 kilograms ) of coffee. A typical tree will produce 2 to 10 pounds per year after it has reached an age of four to five years. Only about 2 to 3 million pounds of Kona coffee are produced each year. Consider that in the USA alone around 700 million pounds of coffee is consumed annually!
From Tree to You
| Picking is done by hand. like many crops, you can't just go out and harvest once. The beans of a given plant reach ripeness over a period of months so beans have to be picked many times to assure that they are harvested at the proper ripeness. The photo on the right shows new flowers alongside developing beans. Beans are harvested when they attain the proper bright red coloration. Care in the bean selection process assures consistency of flavor. | |
After picking, the beans are pulped (outer flesh removed) and "fermented" in water for a number of hours. After a thorough washing, the beans are sun dried on large decks called hoshidanas. Drying can take several days and the beans must be regularly raked to make sure they dry evenly. Sun drying preserves the natural sugars within the coffee bean, adding "body" to the taste of the coffee.
After drying we are left with coffee beans that have a papery covering and is referred to as 'parchment'. Removing the parchment requires that the beans be milled. At the mill, the beans are sorted by size, weight and defects. The percentage of imperfect beans and the size of the beans is considered in the grading process. At Hawaiian Sky, we further inspect each pound before we roast and manually remove any of the few lower quality beans we might find.
The coffee at this stage is called green coffee. If carefully stored in controlled temperature and humidity conditions green coffee can retain it's flavor for a few years. In fact, some people prefer "aged" coffee and seek it out, however, not many sources exist for it.
Roasting is the final stage in coffee production. You can order green coffee from us and roast it yourself, or we will roast it for you right before we ship it to you. Roasted coffee that sits on the shelves in stores for months deteriorates into an inferior cup. (You can store roasted coffee in your refrigerator for some time, just make sure you have it well sealed.) We roast our coffee in small volume, hot-air roasters that keep the beans tumbling and prevent burning. Roasting temperatures are carefully monitored. As the temperature of the coffee gradually rises during the roasting process, many chemical reactions take place within the bean. The release of the coffee's volatile (gaseous) substances occur in a series of transformations known as the Maillard reaction. (In other words, the coffee's wonderful aroma is created!)
We offer a medium or dark roast. Medium roast coffee has a milder but complex flavor and retains more of the caffeine that some coffee drinkers seek. Dark roast coffee is heated to a level called "second crack" where additional complex oils are released giving the coffee bean a glossy look. Some coffee roasters essentially "burn" their dark coffee, roasting away all of the flavor. Hawaiian Sky will not roast your coffee in this brutal fashion!
Beautiful Green Kona Coffee Beans