Kona History

In 1828 a missionary named Samuel Ruggles brought from  Brazilian cuttings Kona's first coffee plant. After the passage of several decades Kona Coffee crops were springing up everywhere in the upper and lower Kona districts on Hawaii's Big Island west coast after the realization that the Arabica trees seemed to thrive in the volcanic soil and perfect weather conditions offered in this region. Sugar cane plantation workers were originally imported from Japan years earlier working on the sugar crops and Coffee plantations however later others followed from Europe, the Philippines, and Mainland America to work on the Kona Estates where the majority of these crops resided. A pivotal period was the 1899 world coffee market crash. This left the plantation owners with no other choice than to lease their land to their workers. The small families of workers were given manageable size lots ranging from 5 to 12 acres and produced high quality and high volume crops. The Kona demand stayed steady over the next century explaining why their are an estimated 800 Kona farms today with an average size of five aces or less producing over 2 million pounds of green coffee on a total of 2300 acres. One is to wonder if this tiny piece of paradise can produce enough of this mystical green bean to answer the call of the growing and never ending Global demand for this rare Coffee.  Note: The state of Hawaii's labeling laws require the prominent display of the words "100% Kona Coffee"