Spirit of Aloha | Features | January/February 2002

Boutique Coffees
By Sophia Schweitzer

These gourmet coffees, grown on small estates around Hawai'i, are aromatic, aristocratic and addictive

During the winter months in Hawai'i, white, fragrant flowers cover low-slung branches like popcorn
garlands on Christmas trees. They cascade down mountainous slopes to give way to a profusion of green fruit, which, nurtured by clouds, rains and volcanic soils, turns scarlet, juicy and plump. Come September, it weighs down trees that may be a century old. The cherries are ripe. Coffee season has arrived.

Hawai'i, the only state in America to grow commercial coffee, has the perfect climate for it. But the best coffee, like fine wine, doesn't necessarily come in large quantities. It's grown on small estates, where farmers hand-pick the cherries and carefully monitor their crops. In the process, the coffee makes its alchemical journey from freshly pulped bean to creamy cup of brew.

Small coffee estates maintain full control of their product, from cultivating the trees to roasting the beans. These independent farmers often grow such small quantities with such great devotion that they have enough only to sell by word-of-mouth, on the Internet and to selected customers. They put in 10- to 15-hour days. They each have their own opinion on what makes coffee the best, and they all struggle with wild pigs that trample their saplings and with coffee prices that tumble and soar. Charging at least $25 per pound of coffee, they barely recoup their costs. They are in the business for the love of the tree and the lifestyle of the farmer. Oh, and a passion for pure coffee.

Along the Kona Coast on the Big Island-a 25-mile stretch of 2,600 acres, from Holualoa to Honaunau, known as the Kona Coffee Belt-most of the 600 coffee farmers sell their harvest directly to Hawai'i's large processors. But approximately 100 solitary growers are dedicated to 100 percent Kona coffee from their own estates. What makes it so special?

"When people ask me for Kona coffee, I bring out a dozen jars," says Steve Lopez, owner of Waimea Coffee and Co. on the Big Island. "They smell the beans and notice differences in darkness or oiliness. Surprised, they ask how all these coffees cup up. I tell them that each coffee is defined by soil, fertilizer, rainfall and technique." Lopez, whose company has been in business for 10 years, buys coffee beans from organic growers only. "To me, only organic beans capture all the flavors of the land."

He sends me to one of his favorite growers, Bruce Bohannan. I find Bohannan at the top of a steep, bumpy road, above Kealakekua, elevation 1,800 feet. He is plant-
ing young coffee trees in rich, black soil. It's raining. The air is suffused with the scent of fertile compost. His shirt and jeans are smeared with mud. "It's full moon," Bohannan explains. "A good time to get the plants in." Ten years ago, Bohannan became caretaker of a 2-acre plot above Holualoa, overgrown with tropical trees and vines. It turned out to be one of the oldest coffee estates in Kona. You've got to honor that: Bohannan's coffee carries the name Boki Estate, after Chief Boki, a governor of O'ahu during Kamehameha II's reign, whose O'ahu gardens provided the first coffee cuttings for Kona in 1828.

Bohannan helps other organic farmers to get started. With soil sample results from the University of Hawai'i in hand, he creates fertilizers to balance soil that may have suffered from decades of herbicides. He uses natural ground covers such as rye or grass to control the weeds, and recycles coffee pulp to foil the ubiquitous nematode. To the outsider, Bohannan seems to go to a lot of trouble for little pay. Why? "Everything you do on these slopes runs down the mountains into the sea," he explains. "I don't want that to be poison. Financially, for a long time, it was a sacrifice to go the organic way. You couldn't ask for more money just because you were organic. I did it, because I believe in it." But actually, connoisseurs know organic coffee tastes better. They want nothing else. I taste Bohannan's coffee: It's soft. With chocolate overtones. I am hooked.

It's completely different from the equally smooth coffee I savor at Rooster Farms, one of the oldest certified organic coffee farms in the area, owned by Mike Craig and his wife, Lindy Felsheim. Craig-who walks his orchard barefoot-maintains 6 acres, 1,500 feet above the sleepy village of Honaunau, just south of Kealakekua. His trees, surrounded by mangoes, papayas and Norfolk pines, produce about 15,000 pounds of cherries a year. But don't let that fool you. What starts out as a 100-pound bag of fresh cherries ends up as 18 pounds of roasted coffee. "And that's after you carry each bean about 16 times," Craig laughs.

He explains how estate farmers crank the hand-picked cherries through wet mills, frequently improvised, to remove the outer, juicy pulp from the beans inside. The beans then soak for about eight hours before they get to dry, preferably in the sun. Sun-drying is Craig's specialty. He uses a 42-by-78-foot wooden deck, with a plastic roof that lets 99 percent of sunlight through. To make sure the beans dry to perfection, Craig rakes them several times a day, for 10 to 15 days. "It's a critical part in the process," he says. "Good sun-drying enhances the beans. It adds to the body. But they shouldn't start to ferment, so when it rains, many farmers turn to mechanical dryers. I just rake more often." Dry, the beans go to the green mill to be stripped of their thin protective parchment. The beans have to be graded and weighed, and finally comes the roasting-best done to order.

Estate coffee, especially organic, is a labor of love. Craig, who has been at it for 16 years, has been instrumental in protecting its integrity. Former president of the Kona Coffee Council, he helped to create the Hawai'i Organic Farmers Association in 1994. HOFA has currently certified 20 to 24 farms. With other estate farmers, Craig has also fought to get a certification that guarantees the consumer is getting 100 percent Kona coffee. "We want truth in labeling," Craig says. So far, they've been unsuccessful. A lot of Kona's annual 3 million pounds of green coffee ends up in blends that contain a mere 10 percent of Kona and sell for as little as $4.25 per pound. Because of the label "Kona blend" on the package, visitors believe they are getting the real thing. Of course, they are baffled when they come across "another" Kona coffee that costs six times as much.

One of Rooster Farms' most loyal customers is Merriman's Restaurant in Waimea. Recently, other celebrity chefs in Hawai'i have switched to local estate coffees to complement their cooking.

James Beard Award-winning chef and restaurateur Alan Wong presents his customers with a complete menu of estate coffees. Featured among them is his "Private Reserve" Sakamoto Estate. A sommelier at the Mauna Lani Bay Hotel and Bungalows, Eddie Sakamoto grows coffee on his family farm in Keauhou Mauka. Sixteen years ago, he simply wanted something green for his new land-coffee seemed a fun project. When it produced better than he had expected, he formed a partnership with his uncle-in-law. Together, they own about 3 acres of trees and market the label Plantation Pride.

Sakamoto's real pride, however, is an accidental specialty-the coveted peaberry. Thought to have a denser, more concentrated flavor, peaberries, in coffee lingo, are the estimated 5 percent of whole coffee beans that forgot to split in half. Some believe peaberries result when a tree is under stress-a drought, a lack of nutrients, too much rain. Guess what? Sakamoto's trees grow on rocks. He has lots of peaberries. For a while, he had them lying on shelves in his home, unsure what to do with them. Their flavor mellowed, deepened and matured. Waimea Coffee and Co. found out, invented the classier name Sakamoto Estate, and now has an exclusive. The aged peaberry, a novelty, has become a huge success.

With the recent surge of estate growers in Kona, new techniques help. "Let's grow coffee on a vine trellis," suggested John Alban, owner of Alban Vineyards in Arroyo Grande, Central California, when, in 1997, his brother, Joe Alban, bought 20 acres of land below Kainaliu. "My background is in growing plants," John explains, as we walk around the small orchard where the coffee trees sprawl out like candelabra. "Not just grapes. The trellis made sense. For one thing, you no longer need to prune the entire tree. That gives greater yields." But there are other advantages, such as easier hand-picking and support for the trees during strong Kona storms. Also, says Deepa Alban, Joe's wife and business partner, "The trellis opens the tree up and allows for even sun exposure, even ripening and sweeter fruit." The technique has proven so successful that Kona Joe Estate won the Specialty Coffee Association of America Blue Ribbon award in Miami in 2001 for "best new roasted coffee."

Kona coffee may be the best known Hawai'i coffee, but the other islands are catching on. Ten miles south of Hana on Maui, Chuck and Lilly Boerner have been growing 2 acres of organic coffee since 1995. There's not a Maui coffee lover who doesn't know about their Ono Farms brew. After all, Chuck Boerner's mother is in charge of selling it at the popular farmers market in Hana. Chuck's mother, by the way, is 91. "The key to our wealth is our health," says Chuck. "We have been growing and eating organic ever since my grandfather converted the family. I have been farming here since I was a kid." The Boerners' is a thriving, tightknit family business. But their success also comes from dedication and diversification-Ono Farms sells bananas, papayas, avocados, starfruit, lychees and mangoes-whatever is in season. Says Chuck: "I love to be able to do what we do and do it well."

Also on Maui is the sprawling, 500-acre Ka'anapali Estate in the West Maui Mountains. Large coffee estates also dominate O'ahu, Moloka'i and Kaua'i. O'ahu, its rugged profile defined by jagged ridges and deep ravines, doesn't have much land that lends itself to coffee. So far, only Dole has been successful. Its 180 acres of Waialua coffee grow on old sugar plantation land close to the North Shore. Moloka'i cultivates coffee on a large 600-acre estate. Kaua'i is home to the state's largest coffee plantation, the 4,000-acre Kaua'i Coffee Co.-yes, bigger than the entire Kona Coffee Belt.

But on the Garden Isle, at least one small estate holds on. Dennis Okihara grows his Black Mountain Coffee in Koloa, on the South Shore. When his employer of three years, McBryde Sugar Co., closed down in 1996, Okihara shifted to asparagus. He also took over 35 acres of mature coffee trees that McBryde had started in an effort to diversify. But Okihara, who hand-picks, sun-dries and does all the processing himself, says that, so far, he is lucky if he gets to harvest even 10 acres. The elegantly packaged coffee he creates is available only on Kaua'i and via e-mail. Does that seem limited? Sure, but as more farmers seek independence, Okihara's attitude-pride and patience-sums up the potential of Hawai'i's small coffee estates: "It's a tough business. But people are aware of the differences between good coffees worldwide. They know that coffees grown in different areas taste different. Hawai'i? It's just a baby in the industry. And Hawai'i coffee tastes good!"

Home Brews

Places where you can buy the coffees mentioned in this article:

Boki Estate
Waimea Coffee and Co.
808-885-4472
www.waimeacoffeeandco.com

Rooster Farms
808-328-9173
www.waimeacoffeeandco.com

Sakamoto Estate
Waimea Coffee and Co.
808-885-4472
www.waimeacoffeeandco.com
Alan Wong's restaurants

Kona Joe
808-322-2100 or 877-566-2563
www.konajoe.com

Ono Farms
808-248-7779
www.onofarms.com

Black Mountain Coffee
808-639-6717
E-mail: oki@hawaiian.net

Sophia Schweitzer, a free-lance writer who lives on the Big Island, is the author of "Chocolate and Vanilla: Growing Flavors in Hawai'i," which ran in the January 2001 issue of SPIRIT OF ALOHA.

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