From Maui, it was on to the Big Island . . . home of the only coffee crop on American soil!  I made previous reference to my caffeine addiction, but the truth is that I was on the coffee wagon when I last went to Hawaii.   I fell off that wagon with a bang when I landed in Kona — everywhere I turned I was inundated with advertising messages:  Buy coffee!  Drink coffee!  Drink more coffee!  Buy some and ship it home to your friends!  Don’t forget your poor Aunt Clara in the nursing home!  Here, have a 10-gallon cup of Kona!  Drink up!  Support Hawaiian coffee growers!  Blah!  I fell under the spell of this subtle advertising and quickly found myself in the throes of a five-day caffeine buzz.

Actually, it was the smell that got me.  That rich, Kona coffee that costs about nine zillion dollars a pound gives off an aroma that’s irresistible; and the smell along justifies the price.  But you don’t have to pay the shipping premium in Hawaii, so I stocked up.   And  drank up.  And drank some more.  And still more. 

 Remember the old Beavis and Butthead episodes where Beavis gets jazzed up on coffee and starts playing Cornholio?  Well, that was me. 

Seriously, I did want to do things a little differently than most travelers to the Big Island, so much of our trip was focused on coffee.   Everybody else seems to do the pineapple plantation tours, which I’m sure are lovely; but ever the contrarian, I opted to java-ize my trip.  Besides, after all the boozing I’d done on the other islands, it was time to sober up before heading to the mainland.   

We stayed in Holualoa — where there are many fine hotels – but ours was the KonaLani, which is actually on a coffee plantation.  Upon arrival, instead of the now-familiar rum punch routine, they presented us with leis made of coffee berries!  We spent an entire day touring the Kona Coffee Company, which was probably the most educational thing I did during my entire trip.  I felt like we got a fairly sanitized presentation in terms of worker conditions and the like, but Kona does seem to have a genuine concern with environmentally-correct coffee production, and takes steps to preserve the soil with practices such as intercropping with rice.  The farming aspect of it was all new turf for me, and it’s changed the way I think when  I enjoy morning coffee, much the same as my travels in Bordeaux have changed how I appreciate wine.

Thanks to wkluck for this great shot of the Kona plantation!

 Apparently there’s a bona fide coffee tourism industry that’s taken root in the past few years.  I didn’t know about it when I was last in Hawaii, but I stumbled across some entries about it from my fellow blogger igougo.  Grab a cup of coffee and check it out!

Posted on November 26th, 2007 by Thomas
Filed under: Big Island, Hawaii, Holualoa