Known for coffee: How to immerse yourself in coffee country on the Big Island

07.06.2024 - 09:39 / lonelyplanet.com

This article was a dapted for digital from Hawai'i, The Big Island, due to publish in August 2024. Written by Ashley Harrell, Jade Bremner and Megan Minor Murray.

With its strong, smooth flavor, Kona coffee is some of the world’s best. A trip to the Big Island is therefore incomplete without sampling its premier product (don’t mess with the blends, though – the 100% pure Kona coffee is where it’s at). Exploring a coffee farm or two is also a great way to learn about the island’s agricultural heritage and history. Just be sure to make reservations for tours and other activities – you won’t want to have braved these steep, narrow roads for nothing.

Up in the hills surrounding Hōlualoa, you’ll find some of the Big Island’s most enchanting environs: this is where high elevation, frequent cloud coverage and fertile volcanic soil come together to produce some of the island’s best coffee beans. Kona coffee has had gourmet cachet for decades, and today many coffee farms have opened roadside visitor centers and gift shops where they give free samples and tours. The best time to visit is during the harvest season, running from August through February, when "Kona snow" (white blossoms) and "cherries" (mature berry fruit) cluster on the coffee trees.

Many coffee farm tours are 15-minute affairs, but the Kona Coffee Living History Farm, run by the Kona Historical Society (an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institute), goes deeper. More than just an exploration of how coffee is grown and harvested, this self-guided experience on a 5.5-acre working coffee farm includes encounters with costumed interpreters who demonstrate traditional crafts, agricultural practices and the everyday activities of rural Japanese immigrants to South Kona. Several of the docents grew up on area coffee farms, so they speak from experience about the orchards, processing mill, drying roofs and main house. It’s $20 per person, with no reservations required. It’s open between 10am and 2pm Tuesday and Friday and located 10 miles south of Hōlualoa in Captain Cook.

For those who would like to support one of the island’s eco-friendliest producers, there’s Hōlualoa Kona Coffee Company. The company’s small, organic-certified Kona Leʻa Plantation is less than 2 miles south of Hōlualoa. No pesticides or herbicides are used, and as you drive up, watch out for the free-ranging geese who do double duty as lawnmowers and fertilizer. A visit here is a peek into rustic, jungle-grown sustainability: you’ll be surrounded by composted coffee-cherry skins, mulched green waste and sacks of organic fertilizer. Tours are free and take place 8am to 3pm, Monday through Thursday.

Another popular tour is that of Greenwell Farms, a 150-acre family farm established in