Green Coffee Offerings : Islanda : Hawaii |
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View Our Current Hawaii Coffees
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Upcoming Crop CommentsWe ran out of the Hawaiian coffees from earlier this year - thank goodness. Once this coffee is gone - that will be it until the new crop - which we usually get in February 2012 at the soonest. |
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About Hawaiian Coffee
  Skip and Rita Cowel, with Maria |
Ah, Hawaii... what a nice place. They grow nuts, fruit, and coffee. The coffee is expensive. It is mild (sometimes too mild) or it can be wonderful! It can be terrible and flat. The best coffees cost a lot ...the worst cost way too much. So the goal with Hawaiians is to quit thinking that all Hawaiian coffee is good, and to realize that only a handful of coffees deserve the high price in terms of cup quality (you can easily argue that all deserve a high price in terms of the care and labor expended in producing them). And frankly, you must pay quite a bit for the truly great small-farm Kona. We had occasionally offered coffees from Maui, Molokai, and Kauai. But these are not grown like true small-farm Estate grade Kona coffees, nor do they taste like them. Kona isn't grown at impressive altitudes compared to other coffee origins, but on Maui and Kauai, coffee is grown at exceptionally low elevations. Also, most Kona is a special cultivar, Kona Typica, a traditional varietal that cannot be grown at low elevations.Recently, we found out that Ka'u coffees have come a long way, and the lots from Will and Grace Tabios' farm are excellent. So Ka'u is a region with soild quality potential. In a historical sense, coffees like Kona are the pinnacle of a particular definition of what "good coffee" is ... clean, pleasant, mild, good aftertaste. This is a notion of "good coffee" handed down from a time when low-grade coffee was called Brazil Rio and it had a seriously foul, dirty taste (so distinctly awful it is still called Rioy in defective coffee terminology). The best coffees were considered the polar opposite; island coffees -- mild, delicate and clean. Certain Specialty Coffees we now appreciate as intense and desirable cups, Yemeni coffees, Ethiopian Harar, Dry-processed Sumatras for example, would be considered terrible in this definition. If you love these intense coffees, Kona may seem too light, too simple, too mild. The even scores in the mid-80s indicate balance and solid quality. Consider this when you taste Kona coffees. More Kona Coffee History and Information | Kona Cupping 2004 | Kona Cupping 2005 | Kona Coffee Festival web site |
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Flowering arabica blossoms |
Ripe Kona Typica coffee cherry ready for hand-picking |
... the opposite of a small family farm on Kona: the Kauai Estate's mechanical picking system. |
Yours truly and my favorite spitoon, judging at the
2004 Kona Cupping Competition. |
Our Unroasted Hawaiian Coffee Offerings:
Please refer to our Reference Page for definitions of terms and cupping numbers used below. Check out the Sweet Maria's Coffee Home Roasting Forum for more conversation about home roasting this and other coffees.We are currently out of stock. The review below is provided for your reference.
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Ka'u is a highland region on the southern coast of the big island, Hawaii. If you drive through the Kona regions on the west coast, eventually you will wrap around on a gentle south-southwest heading and Ka'u will be on the plateau above you. It's about 30-40 miles from Kailua Kona. This lot is from a 7-acre farm of Will and Grace Tabios, who have been gaining attention submitting their coffees to the Specialty Coffee Association of America's Roasters Guild Cupping Pavilion Competition. They won 6th place in 2007 among all origins ... not bad for a coffee grown at 1500 feet competing against those from 1500 meters or more! I panned Ka'u coffees years ago, when I received initial samples. They seemed mundane, a facsimile of mediocore Kona coffees. And the bias of the Kona farmers against any non-Kona coffees did not inspire further investigation with Ka'u producers. In fact, a lot of coffee is grown on other islands and other zones than Kona, and it rarely adds up to anything more than a flat, low-grown, insipid cup. So the samples from this particular Ka'u farm, Will and Grace (I know, it's like "Seinfeld Estate" or something), took me by surprise. They were well-prepped and sweet, with a rounded mouthfeel. It reminded me of the best of small farm Konas. Certainly, Ka'u has progressed. I will focus on the excellent wet-processed lot, but we have trace amounts of pulp natural and natural dry-process to offer on a very, very limited basis. The dry fragrance has a malt syrup and caramel sweet aspect, and some minor winey fruit hint to the cup. The wet aroma adds to this a nice, lush floral scent at C+ roast levels. It's a classic Kona-type coffee in many respects, with that intrepidly balanced flavor profile, the triangle of brightness-body-flavor in moderate and equal amounts. There are drying nut flavors (macademia, brazil nut), toasted bread, silky light mouthfeel, and a soft floral-tinted sweetness. As it cools, the roast notes get more chocolate-like and drying, with a somewhat minty sharpness At a slightly darker roast (FC - FC+) the coffee is pungent, peppery, with tangy dark roast bittersweetness. The body is a bit thinner as the roast progresses, but this can be offset by resting the coffee 24+ hours after roasting.
View Cupping Scores
We are currently out of stock. The review above is provided for your reference.
Archived Reviews
To view reviews for out of stock coffees, visit our Hawaii Coffee Archives.
2005-2006 | 2004 -2003 | 2001-2002 | Pre-2000 Tom's Sample Cupping Log | Moisture Content Readings This page is authored
by Thompson Owen and Sweet Maria's Coffee, Inc. and is not to be
copied or reproduced without permission
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