Big Island Coffee News & Articles

Not to be confused with barrel-aged whiskey, the coffee variety Bourbon, pronounced “boar-bone”, is among the most cherished varieties in the coffee world. With juicy red berry notes and abundant sweetness, red bourbon shines in the cup. It’s these qualities that attract consumers and coffee roasters alike.
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The traditional variety, Kona Typica, is responsible for the balanced, sweet, and slightly floral tasting notes of great Kona coffee. With lighter roast Kona you’ll find notes of stone fruit and cocoa butter, whereas dark roasted Kona will result in a more chocolatey and nutty cup. Our roasting team decides the roast degree to bring out and enhance certain flavor profiles, hence the difference tasting notes found within each roast level. 

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Deep in Hawaii’s lush volcanic jungles, Māmaki  grows both wild and cultivated. It's a delicious native plant that is both restorative to your body and benefits Hawaii's native rainforest. Learn how it tastes, how to brew, and where to buy pesticide-free Mamaki Tea.
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Don't get fooled into buying stale or counterfeit Kona coffee. If you want to know where to buy real Kona coffee while vacationing in Hawaii, or while shopping online, these 10 tips are for you.
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Do you have organic Hawaiian coffees? Are they GMO or Fair Trade? What does Specialty mean? These are great questions deserving of thoughtful answers.

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Question: "Hi guys, I have a client here I’m sharing your coffee with, and she started talking about mold and mycotoxin-free beans which are supposedly sold by Bulletproof Coffee / Dave Asprey, etc.

What are your thoughts on mold in relation to coffee? Thank you."

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In Hawaii, farmers earn 30-60% of the price you pay for coffee. Outside of Hawaii, commercial coffee farmers earn as low as 5%. 

The answer to the question "why is the price of 100% Kona coffee so high?" starts with answering this: "Why are non-Hawaiian coffees priced so damn low?"

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Red and black honey processed coffees are notorious for making exceptional espressos because they have a creamy or syrupy mouthfeel, a hint of fruit, and lower perceived acidity. They tend towards being full-bodied and sweet over having defined clarity and acidity.
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This is the story behind Ka'u Cloud Caturra, and how we used yeast in fermentation to boost the quality and create consistency. Yeast fermentation in coffee can do good or bad things to coffee, but it does either more consistently than “wild” fermentation.
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Laylow has selected Big Island Coffee Roasters as its new, exclusive provider of coffee at Hideout! The Laylow, Autograph Collection was recently ranked in the 2022 Travel + Leisure’s 500 list of best hotels in the world. A perfect fit for awarded, artisan Hawaii-grown coffees.
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This is a special post for home coffee roasters about roasting green Kona and Hawaiian coffee at home. | Treating Hawaiian coffee in the same way as green coffee beans from other origins will often lead to grainy or sharp flavors in the cup. To avoid this...
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Espresso Bites, our edible coffee, is a Good Foods Awards winner! In a blind tasting, judges evaluated nearly *2000* national entries and selected winners across 18 categories. Espresso Bites won in the category of Confections! 🏆
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In 2021, we delivered more local coffees than ever before. In the last 12 months alone our coffee purchases have put 7-figures into the hands of Hawaii farmers, and 83% of that went to rural, artisan Big Island coffee farmers + the people they employ. Thank you ♡
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This is a story of an unprecedented undertaking, tension and redemption. Now, at 94 points, this is one of the highest scoring traditional Kona coffees available. It's a top tier version of quintessential Kona coffee. Kona coffee times 10, produced through data-driven farming, teamwork, and precise roasting.
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The biggest lie in Hawaiian coffee affects growers and buyers alike.  Over time it leads to poor quality, a poor reputation, and low pricing. It's a race to the bottom that makes farming unsustainable and evaporates trust. And that’s what we’re trying to change.

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If you’re a coffee aficionado, you’ve likely seen “peaberry” coffee around. Contrary to popular belief, peaberry is not a coffee variety. Peaberry is a description of the coffee bean itself, and peaberries spontaneously appear on all coffee trees and varieties. To truly understand the peaberry, we need to look at the anatomy of coffee.
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As a result of Juli’s work, these are the first lots of white wine yeast processed Oahu coffee. And guess what? We got our hands on most of it!
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Featured Sept 2020 in the Wild Hawaii Coffee Club. | Kona Geisha has earned both Grand Champion the statewide Hawaii Cupping Competition and 1st place in the Kona Coffee Cultural Festival, as the best Kona coffee of 2018. 

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The mokka coffee variety is distinguished by its petite, round berries and chocolatey flavors. Yes, “mokka” and “mocha” are related, but the reason they are related goes back to the Middle East, specifically to the Yemeni port of Mokha.
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This month we're featuring a unique, jammy, and fruit-forward Hawaiian coffee called Ka'u Cloud Natural produced by Miles of Silver Cloud Coffee Farm, whose coffees won 1st place in the Ka'u District in 2019!

Natural processed coffees are harvested and then dried fully intact as a whole fruit. What results is a deeply fruited, full-bodied, exotic coffee experience. 

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