A Little Strip of Heaven - The Story of Kona Coffee

The history of Kona Coffee goes back more than 150 years but the story that shaped the future of Kona Coffee started with the collapse of the world coffee market in 1899.

The large plantations that had been established since the introduction of coffee to the Kona region in 1828 were nearly wiped out by the crash. The plantations, which were located on steep volcanic slopes, were heavily dependent on imported Japanese labor.

While coffee prices were slumping the price of sugar had spiked. Workers and investors began moving from coffee to sugar. To survive, coffee plantation owners began leasing the land in small parcels to their workers. The small family run Kona coffee plantation was born.

Kona coffee is grown on a narrow strip of land barely 22 miles long and 2 miles wide. The unique blend of daily sun, rain and afternoon cloud that exists between 500 and 3000 feet elevation along the leeward side of the towering Hualalai and Mauna Loa volcanoes provides the perfect growing conditions for coffee.

Mark Twain, while traveling through the district, described Kona coffee as having “a richer flavor than any other”. Today nearly 600 small coffee farms produce over 2 million pounds of coffee annually.

Many small farms are still run by descendants of the original Japanese immigrants. They have been joined by successive waves of Filipino and Chinese plantation workers and since the 1980s other newcomers have arrived to follow their dream of growing great coffee.

The care and attention that these small family enterprises have brought to the land and the coffee has transformed the Kona coffee industry and helped create what many consider to be the best tasting coffee in the world.

To visit the home of Kona coffee simply head up the hill from Kailua-Kona toward Waimea. At the junction with highway 190 follow the arrow south toward Holualoa. Between the small town of Holualoa and Honaunau, along this winding two lane highway, you will pass by many small cafes serving locally grown Kona coffee. Many roast their own and have exclusive estate varieties for you to sample. You’ll also see many narrow lanes leading to the dozens of small coffee farms tucked into the hillside.

As you pass through Kealakekua, not far after the green spire of the Central Kona Union Church you will find the Greenwell Farm Museum. Greenwell Farms is one of the Coffee belt’s oldest and largest producers and exporters of Kona coffee. The museum recounts the development of the Kona coffee industry and recreates the atmosphere of the original Greenwell store. In addition to their own coffee, the working farm buys unprocessed coffee cherries from between 300 and 400 of the areas small local producers for processing, packaging and shipping to markets around the world. 

Since the mid-1970s the production of Kona coffee has grown steadily from 1200 acres to more than 3000. As the recognition and appreciation of 100% Kona coffee has steadily increased, the community of local farmers has worked together to continue building the quality and appeal of Kona coffee. 

Today a growing number of individual farmers and small cooperatives are taking on the processing, roasting and marketing themselves. This increased involvement and knowledge gained from taking their product from the farm to the cup provides growers the ability to adapt their methods at every stage to produce the best coffee possible.

For Kona coffee lovers, they get a chance to enjoy a cup of coffee fresh from the farm that has been individually crafted to be the best tasting coffee in the world.