I have a secret. It's a test run we've been trialing on a small bag of Puna coffee. We're often researching, testing, and tasting things, but this little investigation has been particularly fun. What is it? I'll get to that in a minute.

Puna Coffee

2013 was an exciting year for our beloved Puna Kazumura, Puna Kazumura Peaberry, and Honeyed Yellow Caturaa. Unfortunately, we never have enough! This year we're taking pre-orders of all three. The first release of Puna Kazumura and Puna Kazumura Peaberry will go to the folks who've pre-ordered and then to coffee club members. The remaining bags will be released publicly on our webstore as they come into full maturity.

We will also have a very small lot of Puna Bourbon available for club members.

Puna Caturra

Discovering excellent coffee in a different region feels like finding buried treasure.

This Puna coffee comes from a lower elevation farm in an area called Orchidland. We are in love with how it utterly defies the common, false causal association between elevation and coffee quality (pleasing flavor density); in fact, high quality coffee appears more dependent on cherry ripening slowly, which can happen for a variety of environmental and geographical reasons. This Puna coffee has cupped better than many high elevation Kona and Ka'u coffees. Very exciting stuff!

Tasting notes: aromas of almond and cocoa with a big rose and watermelon juiciness.

This is a very small lot - only 100 pounds - and when we're out, we're out.

Puna Theobroma

Green coffee is quite absorbent of materials around it; it's been known to soak up aromas of diesel, burlap, or concrete even. We took advantage of the tendency by curing our green bean with freshly roasted chocolate beans, which we harvested, processed and roasted ourselves. Our hope was that the elegant essence of cocoa nib would suffuse and complement the coffee without overpowering it.

We've let them sit together for 2 months - 30 pounds of green Puna with 10 pounds of Hawaiian cocao - and we've been cupping it periodically to test the level of infusion and, well, we're smitten.

Tasting notes: Exquisite hints of dark chocolate and carob mingle with the almond and red wine character of Puna coffee.

Although this lot is also small, you can bet we'll be infusing more coffee along the way.

Cascara Tea

Cascara, the Latin American name for coffee cherry, can be dried, sorted, stored and served as a tea. This cascara tea comes from our farm in Puna, where we wash, dry, then hand sort the coffee cherry. Nearly each piece is touched to assess its quality. After which, the cherry is toasted and packaged.

Although the caffeine content is low, the antioxidants are high. The flavor is similar to hibiscus and it makes a beautiful iced tea.

Hawaiian (adult) Brewing Chocolate

Hot chocolate need not be sugary and overly-processed. In our case, it's a bittersweet drink enjoyed similarly to coffee: french-pressed and black.

Our Hawaiian chocolate is single origin, from Puna. We harvest, ferment and roast the chocolate beans. And our roasting style is more similar to small-batch coffee roasters than chocolate candy bar producers: bright, deep, and bittersweet.