In 2012 Jean and I came to Hawaii’s ‘Big Island’ for a week’s vacation. We had the most amazing time, the kind of vacation everyone dreams of.
Everything was perfect - the weather, the beach, the food. Yes, it is possible, Kona was love at first sight.
As a memento of our trip, we brought back home a bag of Kona Coffee. At the time we didn’t know Kona coffee was widely regarded as the finest coffee in the world. When we tried it for breakfast at home with our children one day, we all agreed it was the best coffee we’d ever tasted.
After 30 years of corporate life Jean wanted a change of scenery. Our children were grown and gone. I needed something new and exciting, it was time for a new chapter in our lives. We returned to Kona to look for a coffee farm.
We looked at several farms, one of the property we saw was a small 6 acres coffee plantation in Captain Cook 20 miles south of Kona. The property had been neglected for a number of years and only about 2 acres of land had coffee trees. The house, originally built in 1956, needed a total remodel. At first glance, this little coffee farm didn’t have much going for it.
We spent some time walking around the land, went to the top of the property, I turned around and gasped, the view was amazing...for the first time we could see the potential.
We spent our first year bringing the farm back to life, nurturing existing trees back to healthy productive ones, planting new coffee trees and learning, learning, learning. We spoke with many local coffee farmers to learn about what it takes to produce great coffee. They were happy to give us the benefit of their experience. Kona coffee is already known around the world for its premium taste and quality, our goal was to produce not just any Kona coffee, but the best possible Kona coffee.
Being an organic coffee grower was an early decision. As important as it is to us, we wanted to prove to the coffee world that a well-crafted organically-grown coffee could hold its own with the best non-organics from anywhere. We received USDA Organic Certification in 2015. We bought an additional 20 acres of land to increase production, planted coffee trees from seeds. We built a large processing plant and experimented with new and innovative coffee processing methods. We won multiple awards since and have been top 10 best coffee Statewide two years in the row.
Today we have another 20 acres under our management. We don’t just run our own coffee farm, but support and manage farms on behalf of other Kona coffee producers. The Hala Tree touch now extends to more than 50 acres of prime coffee plantations, actively working with smaller coffee farmers in the Kona region attain organic certification. It is a way we are giving back to the coffee farming community that welcomed and helped us not so long ago.
Hala Tree coffee consistently ranks among the very best coffees produced in Kona. Never ones to rest on our laurels, there’s an innate spirit of innovation - of constantly trying out new ideas to raise the bar even higher. You can taste the passion and essence of community in every cup of our coffee.
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