recherche d'hotels HelsingborgKona Coffee is Grown Only in Kona

The Kona name only applies to coffee grown within the crescent-shaped area known as the Kona growing region on the Big Island of Hawai'i. Coffee that is grown elsewhere cannot be called Kona coffee. The green area in this map is the Kona growing region.

Pure Kona coffee comes from the slopes of the Mauna Loa and Hualalai volcanoes. The ideal growing conditions and rich volcanic soil combine to produce the best flavored coffee in the world. Because the Kona region has dry winters and wet summers, the coffee has a chance to bloom and be pollinated before the sub-tropical Hawaiian rains set in.

The first coffee plant in Kona was brought in by Samuel Ruggles in 1828 from the ornamental gardens of the Hawaiian chiefs on Oahu.

Kona coffee berries turn bright red when they are ready to be picked. Only the ripe berries are harvested with each round of picking, which means that the same tree is picked as many as eight times in a season. This labor-intensive process is the main reason Kona coffee costs so much to produce.

luxury hotels in GdynaAfter picking, the coffee is pulped to remove the outer fruit-like skin and fermented overnight to remove the sweet layer of sugar that surrounds the coffee bean. The next step is drying, which traditionally is done in Kona on large rain-protected decks. Coffee must be dried thoroughly before the next step in processing, and this takes anywhere from one week to a month.

At this stage, the coffee bean is covered in a protective hard shell, and is called parchment. Before roasting, the shell must be milled off the bean and polished to remove the last protective layer called silver. This produces green bean, which can be stored several years before roasting.

Each four pounds of coffee cherry picked from the tree yields one pound of green bean. Each pound of green bean results in 0.8 pounds of roasted coffee.

Green bean is graded by size and defect rate to yield several different grades of coffee. These are Kona Extra Fancy (the biggest beans,) Kona Fancy, Kona Number 1, Kona Prime, Kona Peaberry Number One and Kona Peaberry Prime. Beans that do not meet the minimum quality standards set by the USDA cannot be exported or sold as Kona coffee.

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