When it comes to Hawaiian coffee, Brandon von Damitz and Kelleigh Stewart, the co-founders of Big Island Coffee have been recognized of producing great coffee.
In 2010, the two found a small coffee farm in a wild, disadvantaged region of Hawai’i in Puna and was posted on Craigslist. Originally, they were thinking about buying a farm in Portland, where they both lived. But finding a bank to lend them the money for one proved to be difficult. But after seeing the Craigslist posting of three acres in Puna, full of coffee trees and a house which was being sold less for a price of a home in Portland? They had to go to Hawaii and met the owner, who is from Oklahoma and bought the farm. No need to go through the bank, Bob carries the entire loan and the two have been paying the man, known as Bob, with the profits from their coffee business.
But in the beginning, von Damitz and Stewart then met with the community of farmers and sampled coffee from around Hawai’i and they learned about the local diversity and then learned about how there were people making great coffee with artificially flavored, blended coffee and to make things worse, Kona coffee was taking a hit due to many companies saying they were selling Kona coffee.
Kona coffee farmers have said that the Kona district can only grow approximately 2.7 million pounds of green Kona coffee each year, representing only .01 percent of the world’s green coffee production, but over 20 million pounds of coffee labeled as “Kona” are sold at retail annually. Many coffee companies were using Kona and their advertising and labeling were misleading.
For any person who wants true Hawaiian coffee, its safer to buy it directly from the farms and roasters. Pure and simple!
Kona is known for Typica Arabica variety but it didn’t do well in Puna.
I’ve written about Kona and Ka’u coffee which benefits from the rich volcanic soil of Mauna Loa.
But where is Puna?
Puna is the district on the Big Island’s south east shore. The district is known for its freshwater springs and volcanically heated tide pools. The whole coastline is made up of lava rock and the eastern flank of the Kilauea volcano is located in the Puna district.
Kilauea is the most active volcano in the world and on the map above, it’s on the right side labeled as “volcano”. Sure, it’s not as big as Mauna Loa or Manua Kea but it’s quite active having eruptions continuously from 1983 to 2018. Big Island Roasters is located in Mountain View and the Kilauea volcano is 10 miles from their farm and roastery.
And as you learn about Hawai’i’s volcanoes, the volcanic soil is quite rich and provides a great place for coffee trees to be cultivated.
And for Big Island Roasters, their research led to methods which produced great coffee and began working with neighboring farmers and sourcing their coffees as well.
But all the hardwork paid off for Big Island Roasters. In 2013, their Puna coffee earned the top score as Grand Champion for the state of Hawaii, which is quite impressive because a) They haven’t been around that long b) they are a small c) With so much attention on Kona and Ka’u coffee, Big Island Roasters is in Puna.
And even if they won, the company were unable to make it because the airline tickets cost as much as the lawnmower they need to replace.
But this couple who moved from Portland to Hawai’i after seeing an ad on CraigsList, have now produced coffee which has become the Grand Champion in the state and literally made Big Island Coffee Roasters the rockstars they are today. But they were still small and not enough coffee to sell at a wholesale rate but retail rate.
These are the stories that I find exciting to read about. The hard work, the amount of research, feeding, testing, roasting and cupping coffee, the important people they had to work with in producing great coffee. It’s a challenge and also expensive.
I have mentioned this many times before, the cost for hired help, the high cost of living, the cost to maintain the trees and equipment, coffee made in Hawai’i is a labor of love but Hawaiian coffee is also known as one of the most expensive coffee in the world for a reason. Farmers/roasters have to charge a bit more. They can’t produce bulk like other countries, there are only so many coffee trees planted on rich volcanic soil.
That’s why I believe in working directly with the farmers and roasters, knowing that you are getting true coffee from Hawai’i, from a district and it’s not blended with other beans.
So, now here we are to my review of Big Island Coffee Roasters 100% Ka’u Coffee Wood Valley Single Estate.
The Big Island Coffee Roasters 100% Ka’u Coffee Wood Valley Single Estate recently earned a score of 93 from CoffeeReview.com.
The coffee beans were produced by Alla Kostenko and Rus Kuznetsov at their Wood Valley Farm. For those who are not familiar with Kostenko and Kuznetsov, both were born and raised in Russia, lived in Washington State before moving to Hawaii. They are the authors of the Our Home World project (traveling to all 50 states), known for sharing their travels on their blog and also Burning Man devotees and in 2018, after their trip ended, focused on taking care of their coffee farm in Wood Valley in the Ka’u District.
Big Island Coffee Roasters has worked with numerous coffee farmers and for this coffee, the beans are comprised of Typica and Caturra varieties of Arabica and processed by the washed method (fruit skin and pulp are removed before drying).
This is a medium roast in which the taste is floral, honey, raw hazelnut, ripe pear, black cherry, rose and fresh cut oak but one thing that you’ll notice is the sweetness. Well-balanced.
The aroma is no doubt nutty, but the taste has a bit of spiciness and sweetness which makes it quite delicious.
My response while drinking it was, “Wow! This is damn good coffee!”.
I can see why this coffee was well-rated, it’s absolutely delicious and Big Island Coffee Roasters 100% Ka’u Coffee Wood Valley Single Estate gets a five star rating from me and I highly recommend it!
