by Ella Marie Hayes
Saratoga, Wyo.
April 15, 2008

When it appears that winter doesn’t want to release its grip on snowy weather in our area, we hibernate, and think of warmer climates we have visited like Hawaii. When we once mentioned that it was 60 degrees in Denver in February, our Hawaii friends asked, “Is that warm or cold?” To us it is warm, but to them it meant “cold”!
During our winter trip to Hawaii we had an opportunity to visit fields and processing plants that replaced the sugar cane plantations that once predominated.

Over 150 years ago the first coffee plantation was established near Koloa on Kauai. Abundant water, fertile volcanic soil and Pacific sun make ideal conditions, but when sugar cane became king the coffee plantations were planted with sugar cane. When the current day sugar markets caused many sugar plantations to close, the search began for alternate crops and industries, the logical move was back to coffee.

As we drove through Kauai’s southwest side, we begin to see acres and acres of coffee fields. The fields, located about 17 miles from Lihue, yield the beans marketed by the Kauai Coffee Company on its 3,400-acre estate, the largest coffee plantation in Hawaii.
Kauai Coffee is a relatively new company, but its fields are near the site of Hawaii’s first commercial coffee plantation, established more than 150 years ago.

When sugar production slowed following World War II, bowing to political and global market pressures, many sugar plantations chose to diversify, and the sugar plantation near Koloa turned to coffee production.

Coffee is also grown on Maui, Molokai, and Hawaii Island where ideal conditions are also found. The coffee tree is somewhat hardy, but not where temperatures dip below 32 degrees for any length of time.

In Hawaii, coffee grows in the drier zones, but will not tolerate drought or floods. Drip irrigation is generally used on the Kauai Coffee Estate. When trees turn five years old they are usually mature enough to produce harvestable fruit.

Kauai Coffee trees begin to bloom in February or March and by May, the fruit or coffee cherry starts to form. The fruit ripens around late September when harvesting begins. It is the seeds of the fruit, usually two to a cherry, that become the coffee bean. Each coffee tree (about 4,000 coffee beans) produces about one pound of coffee.

Harvesting is done with special machines that straddle the trees and shake the cherries from the trees using hundreds of mechanical rods. Although the coffee tree usually only reaches 10-20-feet high, the groves are generally severely pruned to allow the harvesting machine to straddle the trees.

The separated cherries are moved on conveyor belts into bins, loaded on trucks and brought in for processing. In the wet processing method, the fruit is separated using water. The over-ripe fruit floats off, while other fruit is sent to the first set of pulping machines which remove the beans from the fleshy part of the ripe fruit.

Because the firmer immature fruit is now larger, it passes through and is separated from the beans that will become Kauai Coffee. The immature cherries are directed to a second set of pulpers, adjusted to provide extra friction to liberate the beans from the harder cherries. These beans will be sold on the commodity market or as Hawaii #3 grade.

After beans are removed from the cherry they are thoroughly washed, then sent to large vertical green dryers where they are gently dried at a constant temperature for about 36 hours. At this stage, samples of each batch of dried parchment coffee are hulled, roasted, ground and cupped (tasted) by a panel of experts.

In the milling area, the parchment coffee is run through a destoning machine to removed the parchment and final thin layers known as the silverskin.

The beans are sorted further by size, color, and density to conform to strict grading standards developed by Hawaii’s Department of Agriculture. During this stage some of the most modern coffee technology in the world is used, including a programmable electronic eye which scans and sorts each bean for color quality before it is bagged. As a final check before shipping, a second sample is taken from each batch of beans and roasted, cupped, and graded in Kauai Coffee’s labs.

Each batch of coffee is inspected by the State of Hawaii Department of Agriculture and certified by grade quality and origin. The coffee is packaged in bags labeled with a tag marked to indicate grade and origin information before the Kauai Coffee is shipped to roasters and retailers around the world.

Van and I visited the free Kauai Coffee Visitor Center where we found a lot of information about coffee growing and its history, and enjoyed the opportunity to sample many flavors of coffee. The Center is on the makai (ocean) side of Hwy 50 just past Kalahea going west toward Waimea Canyon turn-off. (Waimea Canyon is known as the “Grand Canyon of Hawaii.”)

The visitor center also houses a growing collection of coffee mills, tins, and other coffee paraphernalia. A video explains modern coffee production. There is a small coffee roaster on site, which produces freshly roasted coffee.

Open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., admission and tastings are free. A large gift shop is also located at the center. For more information “Google” Kauai Coffee Company online.