Aloha to a Cup of Java

We did a Kona coffee tour yesterday; I learned quick a few things about Kona coffee.

1) Coffee beans are cherries

Cherries on coffee plant 

2) It is picked when the cherries are ripe; once picked, the cherries go through a buoyancy test.  The cherries that float are bad, the ones that sink continues on the process of being coffee beans.


3) The cherries that sank get their skins remove.  The plantation washes the skin and dried the skin to make Cherry Kona Coffee Tea.  The inner seed move on to grading and selection.

Ripe cherries and the seeds inside

4) Most cherries have two seeds inside.  Around 4% have one round seed, and these become Peaberry Coffee

Seeds for Peaberry coffee

5) Of course, the grading and selection of the coffee beans are all done by machines.  Machines import from Costa Rica due to Costa Rica's rich history in coffee processing.  They showed us sifters to demonstrate how it's done.  Coffee beans larger or smaller than these sifters cannot be Kona Coffee.

Sifters to qualify beans for Kona Coffee and to grade the coffee beans

6) Once the beans are graded by size by the sifters, they go through another size and density test -- like the mixed nut effect in physics.

Machine shaking the beans, one grade size at a time.  The smaller, rotten, light beans goes to the bottom.  The big ones on top.

7) The good beans comes out on top.

These beans will move on to color grading

8) Once the beans go through color grading, it will come out of the shooter for roasting.

These beans passed the color grading

9) Roaster -- coffee beans have no taste.  Roasting breaks the beans to release oil in the bean.  The oil is what gives the beans the taste and smell.

10) After roasting, packaging happens and off to store shelves.


This is my brief recap of my coffee tour at Thunder Mountain Coffee in Kona.  The most interesting fact I took away from the tour is how decaf coffee come about.  The coffee beans are soaked in spring water to get the caffeine out.  Once the caffeine is out, they processed the beans to become decaf.  Now, what do they do with the caffeine spring water?  They sell it to Coca-Cola!