Kona Coffee beans direct, suggestions?

[SG-]

Okay just finished my 4lb stash from a trip last year comprising of peabery from both UCC and Greenwell farms. Personally felt that Greenwell had a much superior product vs. UCC.

Looking to restock, does anyone have any other roaster recommendations, I'm going to just do mail order instead this time round. Might give the Greenwell Special Reserve a go...

[phaelon56]

You might try direct ordering from

Kona Purple Mountain Farms

They show only roasted bean prices on their web site ($16.95 per pound). They were strongly recommended to me by another home roaster but I haven't tried their beans. I do know that it's one of the only two Kona's that Sweet Maria's stocks at the moment and they're generally very particular about what they'll stock and sell (they have stocked Greenwell Farms in the past but have none at the moment).

You'll likely want to negotiate for a much better price on direct purchase than what they show for roasted. Sweet Maria's is charging $14.40 per pound for the green and shipping from CA is sure to be less than from HI.

Here's a detailed

Purple Mountain review and roasting recommendations notes

from the SM's web site.

[Rachel Perlow]

Originally posted here:

Here's our source for pure Kona coffee, Bay View Farms. Jason and I visited them on our honeymoon and got a personal tour with Eva and met Roz in the tasting room. We bought a lot then and had it shipped home as souveniers for family, wedding attendants, etc. Since then we have ordered from them several times. One of the best received presents we ever sent was a Thank You to a business colleague of Jason's.  We sent her a couple of pounds of their coffee and one of macadamia nuts. Totally fresh amazing coffee and nuts.... If you like mac nuts and you want to try some really excellent ones, call Bay View Farms. For the coffee, I believe they roast everything fresh right before shipping it to you. Both products are vaccuum sealed. They also sell green coffee wholesale.

Green Peaberry, $12.50/lb.

[phaelon56]

In the process of searching for info on possible effects of the recent tsunami on the Indonesian coffee supply, I stumbled across a fascinating Coffee Times article entitled What You Don't Know About Kona Coffee

The Kona Coffee industry is like no other in the world, or at least none that I have found. It is a century old industry that boasts undoubtedly one of the world's finest coffees if not one of the rarest. But it is also an industry whose product is marred by rip off and counterfeits that have created a tsunami of controversy in this otherwise peaceful region of Hawaii.

Very worthwhile reading.

There are some excellent growers and suppliers (both Bay View Farms and Greenwell are mentioned favorably in the article) but there's also some unfortunate stuff going on with larger companies who sell Kona "blends".

Caveat emptor - this despicable practice has also started appearing with coffee sold as Jamain Blue Mountain "blend" or "style" coffee. It may have as little as 5% of the real bean in it and bear no resemblance to the genuine article.

Just curious... is there much of this deception going on with other food and beverage products or is it confined mostly to the coffee industry?

[Jason Perlow]

In the process of searching for info on possible effects of the recent tsunami on the Indonesian coffee supply, I stumbled across a fascinating Coffee Times article entitled What You Don't Know About Kona Coffee

The Kona Coffee industry is like no other in the world, or at least none that I have found. It is a century old industry that boasts undoubtedly one of the world's finest coffees if not one of the rarest. But it is also an industry whose product is marred by rip off and counterfeits that have created a tsunami of controversy in this otherwise peaceful region of Hawaii.

Very worthwhile reading.

There are some excellent growers and suppliers (both Bay View Farms and Greenwell are mentioned favorably in the article) but there's also some unfortunate stuff going on with larger companies who sell Kona "blends".

Caveat emptor - this despicable practice has also started appearing with coffee sold as Jamain Blue Mountain "blend" or "style" coffee. It may have as little as 5% of the real bean in it and bear no resemblance to the genuine article.

Just curious... is there much of this deception going on with other food and beverage products or is it confined mostly to the coffee industry?

←

Owen:

Coffee Times buys its Kona coffee from Roz at Bay View Farms. I actually built the original version of that web site back in 1995 and he had all the same Kona informational articles there.

Les Drent, the owner of Coffee Times, also sells Kauai Coffee, which is pretty good stuff. Back then I traded my web design services for coffee -- this was years before Frontpage and Dreamweaver and all that cool design software, you had to code it by hand, and it was basically a cottage industry then unless you were a huge corporation. I'm not sure who he buys it from though.

[Tess]

I've been quite happy with Coffee Times. One of the things Les helped me do was persuade certain members of my family who believe in "the darker the roast the better" to try a medium roast with Kona. It really is nice that way. Some of his other stuff is good too. I don't like macadamia nuts that much, but the dark chocolate ones from Coffee Times always get a lot of raves when we serve them.

I'll have to visit Bay View Farms some time.

[phaelon56]

One of the things Les helped me do was persuade certain members of my family who believe in "the darker the roast the better" to try a medium roast with Kona.

This is true of so many coffees, especially those with lighter floral notes in the flavor profile. The move towards lighter roasting is becoming more widespread and I'm happy to be a part of it - the coffee tastes better

[Beto]

Jay's Shave Ice sells 100% Kona coffee directly from Greenwell Farms. He's a great guy who takes his coffee very seriously. (He also makes a wicked good Hawaiian shave ice!)