Hamakua Hawaiian coffee

The Hamakua Coast is awash in a rolling green sea of sugarcane which is slowly being replaces with coffee bean farms, while along the shore, cobalt waves foam into razor sharp valleys where cold mountain streams meet the sea at lonely pebbled beaches, it is here that you will find locals sipping the local organic coffee.. It took an odyssey of hundreds of years for coffee to reach Hawaii's Hamakua shores and establish itself in the only coffee producing region in the United States. Hawaii is the only place in the United States where coffee has been grown commercially for over 100 years. Hamakua coffee's unique taste and quality are attributable to several factors: its low elevation on the slopes of Mauna Loa, rich volcanic soil, and climate that includes a canopy of clouds during the hottest parts of the day and the right amount of rainfall at the right times throughout the growing cycle.

Most Hamakua coffee farms are small, averaging less than five acres each. The berries are picked by hand assuring that only the finest and ripest are chosen. Farms in Hamakua Hawaii have the highest yield per acre of any coffee growing area in the world owing to favorable growing conditions and planned programs of tree trimming and fertilization. Hāmākua lies on the north coast of the big island of Hawaii and is approximately fifty miles long ending at Waipi‘o Valley. Many little towns sprang up around sugar plantations which were operating along the Hāmākua Coast around the turn of the twentieth century, notably Honoka‘a. Driving the Hamakua Coast from Hilo to Kohala is a very scenic excursion and can be completed in about an hour.