What is kona coffee

Kona coffee is hand picked at peak ripeness, with the farmers returning up to eight times per season to pick the cherry. Once the coffee cherry are picked they are wet processed washed and this includes fermentation, washing the coffee beans, then drying, milling, and grading, resulting in green coffee beans that are milled but not yet roasted.

The Kona coffee beans are then ready for roasting and packaging for sale. The Kona Coffee Belt provides optimal growing conditions including the climate as well as the soil making Kona coffee a wonderful example of how a true gourmet coffee is nurtured From Soil to Sip. As a premium coffee, you'll want to make sure you're getting Kona coffees as close to roast date as possible.

This helps ensure that it's as flavorful as possible. A medium roast is usually recommended, to keep the individual nuances and flavors that make Kona coffee so special. Your personal taste preferences will ultimately decide what roast you go with, whether medium or dark. It can also be made into an espresso roast, though this makes it more generic tasting. The Coffee Berry Borer beetle is a small beetle that lays its eggs inside the coffee cherry fruit where they develop into larva and then begin feeding on the pit of the coffee cherry which is the coffee bean.

Subsequent to this infestation other insects may attack the coffee fruit and the coffee bean at the center of the fruit. These other invaders may cause bacterial and fungal damage.

On the Big Island of Hawaii in Kona Coffee Country there is a coffee quarantine with the goal of stopping the spread of a coffee pest called the Coffee Berry Borer which has been discovered on many Kona coffee farms. A Hawaii Kona Peaberry is a Kona coffee cherry fruit that encases one whole coffee bean rather than the usual two half-beans. Valued for their robust flavor, Kona Peaberry are the rarest type of coffee beans and have a higher density than Type I Kona coffee beans.

Coffee brewed from Hawaii Kona Peaberry is known to have a smooth consistency and rich aroma. Peaberry are typically separated from the rest of the coffee crop and sold as a higher grade of coffee bean. Peaberries are not necessarily better than the other grades Fancy, Prime , they're simply less rare.

They're sorted out during the sorting process so that roasters can ensure a consistent roast, as their unique size would cause an uneven roast development if mixed with standard beans. This may be due to the peaberry's ability to get more nutrients from the coffee plant while developing within the coffee cherry. The peaberry bean may also roast differently due to its different shape. Up to three million pounds of green coffee beans unroasted coffee beans were produced each year in the Kona region around A large amount of the Kona coffee crop is blended with other coffee beans e.

Nearly coffee farms are nestled into the slopes along the western sides of Hualalai and Mauna Loa Volcanoes on the Big Island of Hawaii. Most of these Kona coffee farms are family owned and operated coffee farms. When he visited the region, he sampled a cup from the Brazilian Typica coffee plant, which Chief Boki brought to the Big Island from Brazil in These Typica beans produce sweet cups of coffee.

The Guatemalan Typica trees are the dominant coffee varieties in Hawaii, but the former is still around. In the s, Red Caturra trees became part of Kona orchards, and Bourbon trees have also found their way onto farms. Some farmers plant Guatemalan Typica exclusively, but some crops consist of a blend of various Arabica coffees. In blended orchards, all the beans mix during milling and undergo the same roasting process, but this is not a negative. Because the Typica trees are different varieties of Arabica coffees, they still produce sweet yet mild coffee with little acidity.

The blending of various Typica beans also means it can be challenging to find pure Guatemalan Typica coffee in stores. Still, the subtle nuances of Arabica blends and Kona Typica from the same estates are highly favored. One reason people regard Kona coffee as better than the rest is its delicious, unique taste. When pure Kona coffee undergoes a successful roasting process, you will experience a bright, clean taste with hints of different flavors like honey, brown sugar, fruit, and milk chocolate.

The coffee can also exhibit almost spicy wine notes. The flavors are harmonious, and nothing comes off more potent than anything else. It leaves a pleasant lingering aftertaste reminiscent of nuts and citrus, accounting for its slight acidity.

It resembles a delicious mix of butter, cocoa, and caramel. The balance of taste, aftertaste, and scent creates a coffee-drinking experience that is hard to forget.

It is worth noting that this experience applies to drinking a cup of pure Kona coffee, not inexpensive blends you find in grocery stores. The reason sellers do this is to cash in on the Kona name, which is highly respected.

Unfortunately, the inclusion of lesser-grade coffee reduces the flavors you would expect from a cup of Kona coffee. When you drink pure Kona coffee, you can be sure the selected beans were the best of the crop, and no bitter, unripe, or diseased coffee beans made it into your cup. Its production also plays a significant role in its costs. Because the coffee cherries are hand-picked, harvesting Kona coffee is a laborious process.

Throughout the coffee industry, farmers use machines to shake coffee trees to release both ripe, over-ripe, and under-ripe cherries, which can cause a cup of coffee to taste bitter instead of mild or sweet.

In Kona, farmers pick only the best red coffee cherries from the same trees for multiple months. They also separate them by grade or size and dry processed beans. Farmers and retailers may roast and hand-pack the beans for sale. It can cost as low as three cents per pound to mechanically pick coffee cherries, but in Kona, the cost can be anywhere between 75 to 85 cents per pound.

This price does not include labor. Have you ever tried coffee beans from the Kona coast? This guide will help you stay away from the crap and buy the only Kona worth buying — the real deal. Kona coffee is simply Arabica coffee that is grown, harvested and processed in the Kona region; the Hills of Mauna Loa and Hualalai in the Northern and Southern Kona districts of the big island of Hawaii.

Simply put: they get their name from the region in which they grow. The best Kona coffee has a unique, amazing flavor profile and aroma which is why its on the world coffee map. As always, the taste of your coffee will be affected by the roast, the brew method and freshness.

But if you do the right thing by your Kona beans you can expect to taste hints of brown sugar, milk chocolate, honey, and a hint of a bright fruit flavor. In general, its described as bright, crisp and clean. Expect a very pleasant, lingering aftertaste, with hints of nuts and citrus on your pallet. Its not so much the flavor, the aroma or the aftertaste alone, but the combination of all 3 which make Kona so unique, addictive, and beautiful.

The history of Kona coffee started in s. These gourmet beans has grown popular since then and unfortunately, many opportunists hope to make money in this space. This has led to an abundance of falsely marketed Kona products.

Stay away from these. You want pure Kona only. In many countries, so-called Kona beans might contain only a tiny fraction of Kona beans, or none at all. In fact, most other islands of Hawaii, including Maui and Kauai, are poorly suited for coffee farming 1. This does not mean that other coffee beans from Hawaii is terrible, but it should only be labelled as Kona if it was grown in the correct Hawaiian coffee region.

Because of a long history of sugarcane farming, the soil of most Hawaiian islands has been exhausted and stripped of nutrition. There may be individual non-Kona-coffees from Hawaii that are excellent in their own right. As a general rule, Hawaiian coffee from outside Kona is not any better than, say, the average coffee from Brazil.

Hawaiian coffee beans go through the most meticulous testing in the world, with each batch of Kona receiving a grade from the Hawaii Department of Agriculture HDA. The grade is based on criteria including the size, shape, moisture content and possible flaws in the beans. Extra Fancy grades are uniform in colour, size, and contains almost no defective beans.

Lets take a look at some options to buy Kona beans online in more detail. The best Kona at the best price. You get 3 packs, but you get the best deal. Click here to see the best price on this deal. They feature as the number one Kona on our list of best coffee beans here. Koa Coffee also reward loyalty with special discounts for people in their coffee club, and well-priced multi-buy packages. The Kona Coffee Tripack Medium is an especially good deal , including three 8-ounce bags of Kona for a bundle discount price.

Their Grande Domaine is produced from trees that were planted a century ago.