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Hands On Picking and Plant Care

In the fields, our organic coffee bean trees

are attended to as we hand pick.

It becomes second nature to feel the coffee

beans that are ripe & ready (usually very

red) called "cherry".

We grow our own coffee tree seedlings

We take our coffee farming very seriously, and

have complete control of the entire process.

We have a shade house on the farm where we

grow new coffee tree plants from seeds.

This way we can control by starting known

varieties of coffee, and we can reduce the risk of

bringing invasive species into the farm.

Also, because we are an organic and sustainable

Hawaiian coffee farm, we can be certain of the

quality and care that have gone into every

seedling.

We spend lots of time on organic weed control

At the Kona comfort coffee farm, we use the tried and

true method of organic weed control. We cut them! We

never knew that organic coffee farming involved so

much weed cutting. But it does.

The Shindawa weed whackers seem to be a favorite

on this part of the big island of Hawaii. They are very

well balanced and efficient.

Sometimes we also pick up rocks and sometimes we

do a bit of trimming.

But for the most part it is cut weeds, cut weeds, cut

weeds!

When you have picked enough

beans you can wet mill the coffee

You spend many days on the farm out

in the field picking the red cherry

coffee beans. Before it gets too dark

you haul your equipment, the bags of

cherry and yourselves back to the wet

mill.

There you weigh the bags.

We put a trailer under the pulper to

catch the skins. The bags of organic

coffee beans are then emptied into a

hopper, and we inspect for any bad or

unripe beans, and toss those out.

They are fed down to the pulper and a

small amount of fresh water (from the

slopes of Mauna Loa) helps keep them

flowing. They are pulped into a tank.

The round creba that the wet

parchment passes through helps

screen out any beans that did not get

skinned right. This bypass also

contains a lot of peaberry Kona coffee

beans!

Peaberry is the whole coffee bean

(rather than the normal two halves of

the bean). Peaberry Kona coffee

beans look like a little football.

After pulping, you clean up

and let the coffee beans

ferment

Now the coffee beans are in a

transient state where they have a

sticky substance over their wet

parchment.

We clean up the wet mill parts,

and hang out the bags to dry on

the railing.

The trailer is taken to dump the

pulped cherry skins.

The pulped coffee beans are

covered with water and left to

soak the mucilage off and to

ferment for better traditional

flavor.

After fermenting, we wash, sort, and drain the coffee beans

Now the coffee beans are washed of their sticky mucilage which

yields "wet parchment".

As they are washed, we sort through them again for any beans

that don't pass our quality inspection.

All Beans on Deck!

The coffee beans are put into a

container and the excess water is

allowed to drain.

Then they go onto the sun deck.

We use a special meter to gage

how dry they have become. There

is a range we shoot for to obtain

the best results in our next

processing steps: too moist and

they will not store as well, too dry

they won't taste as good.

The coffee beans are raked to

distribute the heat more evenly

from time to time.

Toward the end of their drying

cycle, it is beneficial to "put the

beans to bed at night". We put

them into big plastic bins that seal

with a lid. This prevents them from

picking up moisture in the cooler

night air which could result in a

revolving cycle of moisture gained

in, moisture dried down, moisture

gained in, etc.

Off the Deck

But Not Coffee Yet!

When the wet parchment

dries it is then called "dry

parchment", and when the

moisture meter says it has

reached the right level the

coffee beans are bagged

and stored to cure.

When the coffee beans have

cured and we have orders

for coffee, the colorful

machine on the right takes

the parchment shell off to

create the actual green

coffee bean we need to be

able to roast.

Off the Deck             Sort and Roast!

At the green bean stage, we then need to sort or grade

the beans (below).

We are especially interested in finding the peaberry

beans, which would be difficult to find if we tried by hand

since only 3% or so will be that grade.

On the right is our coffee roaster and cool down box. You

see the roaster in action on the bottom right.

...There is more of our story...

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Pic 1: Organic Hawaiian Kona Coffee Farm                                    Pic 2: Hawaii coffee from organic Kona coffee farm

Pic 3: Organic Kona Mountain Coffee from Hawaii                           Pic 4: Organic Mountain Coffee from Kona Hawaii

Organic Kona Coffee Farming Blog