For today’s coffee review, I check out Big Island Coffee Roasters “Barrel-Aged Puna”.
A coffee that is among the special order coffee in which you had to pre-order for the roast date which took place on September 21st and sold out immediately.
First, let’s talk about Big Island Coffee Roasters who are based in the Puna District of the Big Island in Hawai’i.
Who/What is Big Island Coffee Roasters?
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 fro 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.
Which now leads me to my review of Big Island Coffee Roaster’s “Barrel-Aged Puna” from the Puna District.
According to the company:
Part of our barrel-aged Hawaiian coffee series, the nuance in this barreled Puna coffee swooned us all! Due to an overcast and cool climate on the slope of Kilauea, the coffees in upper Puna grow dense with flavors and characteristics that taste completely unlike the classic Hawaiian coffee profile. Both exotic and rustic, we’ve lightly “aged” this Puna coffee in local Kuleana Rum barrels.
The Barrel-Aged Puna is one of the pricier coffees to come from Big Island Coffee Roasters. Generating a 93 from Coffee Review, it was also voted #30 in the “Top 30 Coffee of 2019”.
The coffee was produced entirely of the Caturra variety of Arabaic by Accidental Coffee Farm in Glenwood, Hawai’i at an altitude of 2,000 feet in the Puna District and utilizes the Kenya-style double-washed method.
Caturra is a natural mutation of the Bourbon variety and was discovered on a plantation in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil between 1915-1918.
The plants grow smaller but breeders are interested because its small nature allowed plants to be placed closer together and produce more fruit in the same place.
Since 2013, Big Island Coffee Roasters has helped Ron’s farm and transformed his coffee trees into deep, green bushes of cherry. He drives his coffee cherries to the Big Island Coffee Roasters farm for pulping, washing and drying.
Big Island Coffee Roasters encouraged Ron to enter the annual Hawai’i Statewide Cupping Competition and thinking he would never win, Ron wrote down “Accidental Coffee Farm” and signed his name. And Ron’s micro-lot would win first place in the Hawaii District for the Hawaii Coffee Associations Statewide Cupping Competition and 6th overall in the state of Hawai’i (which had approx. 100 entries).
As mentioned earlier, you had to pre-order this coffee (typically coffee that you have to pre-order until the next roasting are among the popular offered by a company, tend to be more pricier and also sells out quickly) before the September 21st roasting and was happy to have pre-ordered before it sold out.
The fact that this is a Puna District coffee, there are two notes that no doubt stand out, the chocolate and the rum.
It’s a fine balance of chocolate and fruity and smooth and is sweet and delicious.
The fact that the coffee beans are aged in local Kuleana Rum barrels, it’s no doubt a unique taste which is no doubt different from Kona, Ka’u and Maui-based coffee.
A good combination of sweet, savory and a little spicy but its about the smooth chocolate, fruity taste benefited by the aging treatment in local Kuleana rum barrels.
Big Island Coffee Roasters Rum-barrel Puna Coffee is no doubt special and is definitely recommended!
