Our Mission

Farm Profile

Unlike most other small Kona Coffee farms, we not only grow our coffee with the utmost care, we do all of the processing ourselves on the farm. We use only time tested techniques and equipment in making CuppaKona. Mary Lou & Chuck not only grow the coffee, they pulp, ferment, wash, dry, hull (remove the parchment coating), roast, package, and ship every single bean of CuppaKona Coffee. We roast and package your coffee only after we receive your order, assuring you the utmost in freshness.

Because we do all of the growing and processing ourselves we know that your coffee was handled with care all along the way from the tree to you.

Our coffee orchard was planted in the 1930's with the classic variety of Kona Typica Arabica coffee. The farm has been in the family since the late 1960's.

How CuppaKona Coffee is Processed
(click the thumbnail photos for a larger image)

1. Growing	2. Harvesting	3. Pulping	4. Fermenting
Each year we start out the growing year by pruning the trees to remove the oldest growth and provide room and light for new growth. After this we fertilize the trees several times during the growing season. When the spring rains come, the trees blossom and about 30 weeks later the cherry coffee is ready for harvesting.	Each bean is picked off the tree by hand and placed in a basket we wear around our waist. Kona coffee is picked by hand because ripe and unripe beans will be side by side and hand picking is the only way to get only the ripe beans. We know that our beans are picked with care, as all the picking is done by Chuck & Mary Lou.	Immediately after we finish a day's picking we pulp the coffee which separates the outer skin from the coffee bean within. Cherry coffee deteriorates quickly and it is import to pulp it shortly after picking. A somewhat messy & wet process but one that by doing it ourselves it helps us assure you of the freshest/best coffee possible.	The wet "parchment" coffee is then fermented overnight to convert the starchy/slimy mucilage coating to a water soluble material that can be washed off with plain water. We only add plain water to the beans for fermenting, the natural enzymes in the beans are all that is needed. This process takes about 24 hours, plus or minus a little depending on the temperature.
5. Drying	6. Hulling	7. Roasting	8. Packaging
After washing the hoshidana (drying deck) roof is rolled back, the coffee spread out on the floor and then raked into narrow lines of coffee with  the bare floor between the lines. The sun heats the floor as well as directly heating the beans. The hoshidana roof rolls because we often get afternoon showers and it is more efficient to cover the beans by rolling the roof than it is to pick up the beans. Our coffee is always 100% sun dried, we never use artificial heat driers. It takes about a week to dry the coffee, at which time it is referred to as being parchment, due to the parchment like coating around each bean.	We store the coffee in the parchment stage until we're ready to roast it as this is the best way to store coffee and retain its freshness. We use a McKinnon peeler/polisher to separate the beans from the parchment & silver skin. The peeler polisher is powered by a 1924 3HP John Deere single cylinder engine. As the beans, parchment, and silver skin come out of the peeler polisher a shop vac draws off the lighter parchment and silver skin residue from the heavier beans. The coffee is now ready for roasting.	Roasting is the final stage of processing the coffee. We roast only after we get your order. Once roasted coffee loses its freshness faster than any other time. That's why "roast to order" is so important in providing the finest coffee flavor possible. We use the specially built fluid bed (hot air) roaster pictured above for roasting up to ten pounds at a time. It takes about 10 minutes for each batch and the setup lets us listen for the "cracking" of the coffee as it roasts, see & smell the smoke and to look at the coffee. We strongly believe that CuppaKona tastes best with a medium roast, but we will roast to a medium dark, or medium light level if specifically requested.	Once roasted we immediately weigh out the coffee, fill and seal the bag. We use heat sealed, clear, zip lock resealable, standup bags with one way valves to let the gases from the coffee escape, but preventing air coming in. This reduces oxidation of the coffee which is the major culprit in roasted coffee losing its freshness.

We are members of the Kona Coffee Farmers Association http://www.konacoffeefarmers.org/ and our coffee is a Kona Estate Coffee as part of the Kona Coffee Farmers Association Estate Farm Program. Information about this program, which helps assure the quality of Estate Kona Coffees such as CuppaKona, is available at the Kona Coffee Farmers Association website under the "Estate Program"  tab.