History of Kona Coffee

The first settlers in Hawai'i arrived in approximately 300-400 AD, probably from the Marquesas Islands. They brought with them taro, ti, sugarcane, ginger, gourd, yams, bamboo, turmeric, arrowroot, and the breadfruit tree. They also brought small pigs, dogs, jungle fowl, and probably rats as stowaways. Many of these new species overpowered the native plants and animals, especially birds. They established a rigid and controlled society, rich in oral and music traditions, although lacking in written language. Hereditary chiefs held blocks of land, and their people paid taxes to their chief (crops or catch) and served for them as soldiers. Strict laws defined what was forbidden and governed the conduct of the various levels of society. There were many wars between the chiefs. Religion consisted of the worship of many gods and goddesses, representing war, life, death, harvest, etc.

The Europeans arrived by accident while searching for the fabled Northwest Passage, a hoped-for new spice route to the Orient. James Cook, an English Sea Captain, reached Kauai in January 1778, replenished his ship, and returned in early 1779 after being forced back by winter storms, to anchor in Kealakekua Bay, Kona. Hawai'i became an important stopping place on one of the world's major trading routes. The Hawaiian chiefs traded sandalwood for foreign weapons and goods, including cattle, goats, and pigs which rapidly over-ran the island destroying the ground cover.

The Missionary Era started around 1820 and their religious beliefs quickly overcame the old system of kapu. Many of the churches they established still exist today.

Coffee Plantations - Coffee was first brought to Kona by Samuel Reverend Ruggles from cuttings from Brazil, although it was not until much later in that century that it became a consistent and worthwhile crop. It was grown on large plantations, but the crash in the world coffee market in 1899 caused plantation owners to have to lease out their land to their workers. Most of these workers were originally from Japan, and they worked their leased land parcels of between 5 and 12 acres as family concerns, producing large, quality coffee crops.

Family Farms - The tradition of running family farms has continued throughout Kona. The Japanese-origin families have been joined by Filipinos, mainland Americans, and Europeans - all of who strive to keep their farms productive, their crops as perfect as can be, and their family lifestyle serene. This family orientation has produced a close sense of community, with care and compassion to spare, and a friendly welcome for all who come to visit.

History of Coffee: A Snapshot

Our enjoyment of coffee has a long and colorful history, one that stretches back thousands of years. Most scientists agree that coffees origins are from the region known today as Ethiopia.

Coffee comes from a fruit which is called a cherry by those in the coffee business. Initially this fruit was consumed raw, chewed like nuts and later combined with fat from animals to produce a high energy paste. Others put the cherries in hot water to make a tea derivative, as well as fermenting it to produce wine.

In the 16th century coffee began to take more of the shape of the drink we know today. It was then that coffee beans were roasted, ground and combined with hot water. Large amounts of sugar and spices such as cinnamon and cardamom were added.

Wild coffee plants were probably brought to the Arabian Peninsula in A.D. 525. Arabs initially used coffee for religious and medicinal purposes. However it wasn't long before coffee became a widely consumed beverage throughout the Islamic world. An interesting tidbit of information from the book Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How it Transformed Our World (Basic Books) by Mark Pendergrast is that lack of coffee was an acceptable reason for a woman in Turkey to seek a divorce. The word coffee is derived from qahwa, an Arab name for coffee wine (a fermented coffee-based brew).

In 1536 Turks from Yemen controlled the coffee trade in the 16th and 17th centuries. They made it forbidden for cherries that had not been boiled or roasted to leave the country so they could not be germinated elsewhere.

However it was not long before beans were smuggled out and brought to India. Beans were then taken by the Dutch to Ceylon known today as Sri Lanka and islands in the East Indies such as Java and Sumatra. It was not long thereafter before Europeans were enjoying coffee, in fact Italian vendors sold coffee in addition to chocolate and lemonade.

It was in the 18th century that the French first created a primitive filter for coffee. Grounds were put in a cloth bag and suspended over a pot and pouring boiling water over them. Incidentally, this method is still used today in Costa Rica. The French are also responsible for introducing coffee plants to the New World by bringing plants to the colony of Martinique.

The country of Vienna owes it's coffee introduction to the Turks who left beans behind after an unsuccessful siege of the city in 1683. It is interesting to note that Vienna is an East / West dividing line that defines coffee drinking practices. Southern and eastern Mediterranean countries usually like to drink coffee black with plenty of sweetener. While the people of Northern and Western Europe and the United States typically drink coffee with milk.

In the 19th century the consumption of coffee in the United States soared considerably due to a drastic reduction of tea imports during the War of 1812. Americans however were still behind the Europeans as far as techniques of brewing was concerned. This changed in 1864 when Jabez Burns invented the modern coffee roaster. Soon after John Arbuckle began packaging roasted coffee in 1-pound bags which vaulted the United States into the large scale production and consumption of coffee.

The quality of U.S. coffee improved on a steady basis until after World War II when large roasters began using an increasing amount of beans from the Robusta plant. Robusta beans are highly disease resistant and yield greater amounts of beans however their flavor is inferior to beans from the Arabica plant. In fact the New York Coffee Exchange once banned coffee from the Robusta plant. Currently there is an overabundance of cheap Robusta coffee from Vietnam which is sold by companies such as Maxwell House, Hills Brothers, Nescafe, and Folgers.

Today the demand for specialty or reserve coffees is growing. Americans are becoming more attuned to the superior flavor of coffee from the Robusta plant. Reserve growers take great care in the cultivation of their coffee by using shade grown trees, higher elevations, different types of soil such as Volcanic, and a greater emphasis on the skill of the coffee roaster to produce truly remarkable tasting coffee.

History of Coffee: A Timeline

Prior to 1000 AD
History tells us that other Africans, from the same era as the Kaldi legend, fueled themselves upon protein-rich coffee and animal fat balls and unwound with wine made from the coffee-berry pulp.

c. 1000 AD
The drinking of coffee soon spread to Arabia, most likely by Arab traders, and by the end of the 9th Century, a drink known as "qahwa" (literally meaning "that which prevents sleep") was being made by boiling beans.

1453
Coffee is introduced to Constantinople (later Istanbul) by the Ottoman Turks. The world's first coffee shop, Kiva Han, opens there in 1475. Turkish law makes it legal for a woman to divorce her husband if he fails to provide her with a daily quota of coffee.

c. 1600
Coffee, introduced to the West by Italian traders, grabs attention in high places. In Italy, Pope Clement VIII is urged by his advisers to consider the favorite drink of the Ottoman Empire part of the infidel threat. One sip, however, and he decides to baptize it instead, making it an acceptable Christian beverage.

1607
Captain John Smith helps to found the colony of Virginia at Jamestown; it is believed that he introduced coffee to North America.

1645
First coffee house opens in Italy.

1690
With a coffee plant smuggled out of the Arab port of Mocha, the Dutch become the first to transport and cultivate coffee commercially, in Ceylon - and in their East Indian colony of Java, source of the brew's nickname.

1713
The Dutch unwittingly provide Louis XIV of France with a coffee bush whose descendants will produce the entire western coffee industry when in 1723 French naval officer Bariel Mathieu deClieu steals a seedling and transports it to Martinique. Within 50 years an official survey records 19 million coffee trees on Martinique. Eventually 90 percent of the world's coffee spreads from this plant.

1727
The Brazilian coffee industry gets its start when Lieutenant Colonel Francisco de Melo Palheta is sent by his government to arbitrate a border dispute between the French and Dutch colonies in Guiana. Not only does he settle the dispute, he also strikes up a secret liaison with the wife of French Guiana's governor. Although France guarded its new world coffee plantations to prevent cultivation from spreading, the lady said goodbye to Palheta with a bouquet in which she hid cuttings and fertile seeds of coffee.

1732
Johann Sebastian Bach composes his Kaffee Kantate.

1733
The Boston Tea Party makes drinking coffee a patriotic duty in America.

1815
Coffee beans were first planted in The Hawaiian Islands by Kamehameha the Great's Spanish interpreter and Physician Don Francisco de Paula y Marin. Marin's plantings were unsuccessful.

1825
Coffee was successfully introduced into Hawaii when in 1825 King Kamehameha II and his wife, and a royal party that included Governor Boki of Oahu, made a state visit to England. The party was beset with measles and the King and Queen both died. While bringing the bodies back to Hawaii, Governor Boki stopped in Rio de Janiero to pick up a number of coffee plants. After returning to Hawaii and having John Wilkinson, a former West Indian planter, plant the trees, the planting stock for the Hawaiian Islands had begun.

1827
After having successfully planted a small field of coffee, Wilkinson died. Others saw the potential of the coffee in the Islands and used seed and cuttings from this small field to begin coffee plantings in other valleys and in other areas around the islands.

1828
Reverend Samuel Ruggles took slips from Wilkinson's field and transported them to Kona making the first plantings at Naole, near Kealakekua Bay. They were planted as ornamental garden plants.

1842
The first commercial venture to produce coffee occurred not in Kona, but in Hanalei on the island of Kauai. In 1845 the venture exported the first 245 pounds of coffee ever from Hawaii, but labor shortages, a drought and a blight put the operation of our business by 1855.

1870
The peak in coffee production on the Big Island of Hawaii happened during this period. Over 415,000 pounds of coffee were exported. Soon after this period, coffee production suffered due to sugar dominance as the Hawaiian crop of choice and the presence of the white scale blight that attacked the coffee crops.

1890
For a short while, interest in commercial coffee cultivation was revived. This was due to the introduction of the Australian ladybird beetle that effectively controlled white blight and the political changes that made more coffee production land available.

1899
The world coffee market crashes.

1900
Hills Bros. Begins packing roast coffee in vacuum tins.

1900
Between 1900 and 1945 donkeys were used as basic transportation in Kona, especially for transporting 100-pound bags of ripe coffee cherry out of the rugged coffee lands up or down to the main road for transport to coffee mills. Dubbed "Kona Nightingales" because of their musical braying, the noble donkey played a vital role in the Kona coffee industry.

1901
The first soluble instant coffee is invented.

1903
German coffee importer Ludwig Roselius turns over a batch of ruined coffee beans to researchers, who perfect the process of removing caffeine from the beans without destroying the flavor.

1906
George Constant Washington, an English chemist notices a powdery condensation forming on the spout of his silver coffee carafe. After experimentation, he creates the first mass-produced instant coffee.

1940
The US imports 70 percent of the world coffee crop.

1994
C. Brewer d.b.a. Royal Kona Coffee, Kona Kai Farms, Hawaiian Isles Kona Coffee Co., and Woolson Tea & Spice d.b.a. Lion Coffee Co., filed federal lawsuits that blocked the trade marking of Kona Coffee. This trademark would have aided Kona coffee growers in the battle to combat counterfeiting.

1995
US Customs indicts Kona Kai Farms for counterfeiting Kona coffee

1997
The State of Hawaii Department of Agriculture began certifying all Hawaiian coffees by origin (island - district). 100% green Kona coffees are certified and graded on a very strict scale.

1997-98
Hawaiian Isles and C. Brewer, major blenders of Kona coffee, set up camp in Kona causing a coffee cherry bidding war. Local mills who are proponents of only 100% Kona coffee struggle to match the prices of these mills that offer the higher prices. Subsequently, the price of Kona coffee skyrockets and it became apparent that the Kona blend companies were going to cripple the 100% Kona coffee industry. During the previous year a small minority of Kona coffee purists launched a class action lawsuit against several mainland coffee companies who allegedly purchased fraudulent Kona coffee from Kona Kai Farms. The suit targeted several faithful and long time customers and roasters of 100% Kona coffee. Starbucks who purchased a minimal amount of this fraudulent coffee immediately paid a claim of fifteen thousand dollars and vowed never again to boy Kona coffee. Needless to say, this lawsuit has had a devastating effect of potential customers of 100% coffee from Kona, Hawaii and has made matters even worse for the hard working local mills trying to sell their high priced 100% Kona coffee.

1997-98
Kona coffee cherry rises to an all time high of $1.75/lb.

1998-99
Kona coffee cherry drops to .55/lb after unfaithful farmers, who in the previous season sold to the blenders instead of their regular millers, chased the pot of gold and contributed to a glut of high priced coffee and an unstable market.

We at HeavenlyKonaCoffee are very proud to offer pure 100% Kona coffee that is State graded and certified. We stand behind our coffee 100%! Aloha!

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