Holualoa Kona Coffee is located at Holualoa Le'a Plantation, a certified organic farm. Desmond Twigg-Smith led a tour of the farm operation, which includes shade-grown coffee, weeder geese, timber areas, and composting. We also toured the coffee processing operation including wet and dry processing and roasting and packaging.
Farm owner Desmond Twigg-Smith led the farm tour, beginning with the farm nursery where new coffee plants are grown.
Coffee is grown in the shade of monkeypod trees (Samanea saman). This helps moderate temperatures and add organic matter to the orchard. The monkeypod trees are pruned periodically so that they do no become too big.
Certain areas near the coffe are planted with timber trees such as this rainbow eucalyptus (Eucalyptus deglupta).
A flock of geese helps maintain the weeds and add manure to the system.
Compost is carefully prepared for use as fertilizer on the farm.
A thermometer is used to make sure the compost temperature is within a certain range.
Roger Leakey manually checks the compost temperature. This method is not considered accurate enough for optimal composting.
Near the farm entrance from the public road, processing takes places, and farm goods are sold at retail to passers-by.
This building houses the wet and dry milling operations.
This is the wet process area. Coffee is washed after pulping in this basin.
The washed coffee is dried on this platform, with the resulting dried beans in their "husk" called parchment.
The parchment material enclosing the dried coffee beans is removed in a special dry mill. This mill processes both the farm's coffee and coffee from over 100 other farms in Kona.
All the farm's coffee is roasted on site and packaged here.
Coffee produced and processed on the farm is sold directly to the public in the on-site retail store. A number of other local products such as soap, candies, and artwork round out the retail offerings.
