Kona coffee facts for kids
Kona coffee is a special type of coffee that grows on the slopes of two big volcanoes, Hualalai and Mauna Loa. These volcanoes are located in the North and South Kona Districts on the Big Island of Hawaii. It's known as one of the most expensive coffees in the world! Only coffee grown in these specific Kona Districts can be called "Kona coffee."
The weather in Kona is perfect for growing coffee. It has sunny mornings, followed by clouds or rain in the afternoons. There's also not much wind, and the nights are mild. This weather, along with the rich, volcanic soil, makes ideal conditions for coffee plants to thrive. The Hawaiian word for coffee is kope.
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Contents
History of Kona Coffee
The story of Kona coffee began a long time ago.
How Coffee Arrived in Kona
The first coffee plants were brought to the Kona area in 1828. A man named Samuel Reverend Ruggles brought them from Brazil. These first plants started the coffee-growing tradition in Hawaii.
Building the Kona Coffee Brand
Later in the 1800s, an English merchant named Henry Nicholas Greenwell moved to Kona. He helped make Kona coffee famous around the world. He worked hard to make sure people knew how special this coffee was. Today, you can visit the old Greenwell Store and the Kona Coffee Living History Farm. They are now museums that show what life was like for early coffee farmers.
From Plantations to Family Farms
In other parts of Hawaii, coffee was grown on huge farms called plantations. But in 1899, the price of coffee around the world suddenly dropped. This made it hard for plantation owners to keep going. So, they started renting out their land to their workers.
Many of these workers were from Japan. They had originally come to Hawaii to work on sugarcane plantations. These families then started their own small coffee farms. They worked on plots of land that were about 5 to 12 acres (2 to 5 hectares) in size. Even on these smaller farms, they grew a lot of high-quality coffee.
Kona's Family Farming Tradition Today
The tradition of family-run coffee farms has continued in Kona. Over the years, families from the Philippines, mainland America, and Europe have joined the Japanese-origin families. Today, there are about 800 Kona coffee farms. Most of these farms are quite small, averaging less than 5 acres (2 hectares). In 1997, the total area used for Kona coffee was about 2,290 acres (9.3 square kilometers). Farmers produced over two million pounds (about 900,000 kilograms) of green coffee that year.
Images for kids
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An old mill at the Kona Coffee Living History Farm, used to process coffee beans.
