Coffee farmer Marin Artukovich looks over fresh-roasted Kona coffee in a cooling tray moments after pulling the beans from a roaster at his Koa Coffee Plantation in Captain Cook.
Coffee’s ‘Napa Valley’
Demand grows for Kona's smooth,
full-bodied brew, but cheap foreign
beans threaten the bottom line
CAPTAIN COOK, Hawaii » It started as a backyard business for Marin Artukovich, a few acres of coffee planted high above the coastline here on the slopes of a volcano.
Today, just seven years later, his Koa Coffee Plantation on the Big Island's Kona Coast comprises 80 acres of coffee trees on seven parcels of land. It yielded around 700,000 pounds last year, and employs 45 people during the busiest part of the season.
It's a far cry from Artukovich's first year in business, when 38,000 pounds of the shiny red cherries holding the beloved bean were picked by family and friends.
"The demand for Kona coffee's gotten better and better," said Artukovich, whose beans are considered among the best in Hawaii, the only U.S. state with commercial coffee production.
"We're becoming the Napa Valley of coffee," he said.
In tourist shops, most Kona coffee is sold in blends containing just 10 percent of beans grown here. The pure stuff typically sells for $20 to $25 a pound here and can go for $40 or more on the mainland.
Aficionados are driven to Kona coffee's unique taste, and with supply short, there's barely enough to go around.
"It's like a well-aged bourbon or whiskey. It's different," said Tom Greenwell, owner of Greenwell Farms, which has 22 acres of coffee. "You can find other coffees similar, but they leave you hanging at the end of the cup."
Still, farmers say they're not getting rich off their crops. Greenwell estimates a 5-acre farm here could yield about $50,000 annually before overhead. It would require the work of a five-person family and still necessitate hiring seasonal help, he said.
The costs for labor and land alone in Kona are many times higher than those in a foreign coffee center like Costa Rica. Artukovich says workers here make an average of $8 to $10 an hour, while a Central American or South American worker might go home with $1 or $2 for an entire day.
"I'm basically doing it for free and I'm having a hard time," said Bob Nelson, who has increased the number of trees at his Lehuula Farms from 1,100 in 1989 to 4,000.
Some 650 coffee farms occupy a 20-mile-long stretch along the Big Island's western coast, set amid fields of hardened lava with panoramic views of the Pacific. Tourists flock here for tours and to snatch up bags of beans.
Kona coffee is strong yet smooth, a full-bodied brew, sometimes with a fruity hint. Coffee thrives here in Kona because the soil is perfect, as is the rainfall. Ample sunlight comes in the course of the day, but clouds manage to block out afternoon rays that are too strong.
The total acreage of Big Island coffee fields rose from 2,800 in 1998 to 3,500 last year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates. Kona is home to an estimated 93 percent of the Big Island's total acreage of coffee crops, producing an estimated 96 percent of the island's coffee.
According to the Hawaii Agricultural Statistics Service, Kona farmers produced an estimated 3.3 million pounds of coffee in 2002-2003.
It amounts to just a tiny fraction of a percent of the world's total coffee crop. But the increasing popularity comes as coffee consumption dips in the United States -- from an average of 1.9 cups a day in each American household five years ago to 1.5 cups a day last year, according to the National Coffee Association.
"Everyone who's in the market is selling all of their product," said Roger Dilts, president of the Kona Coffee Council and owner of the 5-acre Aloha Farms.
Now, Kona beans have found their way back unto the shelves of Starbucks -- all of the nearly 4,200 company-owned stores in North America. It's the first time in seven years the coffee giant has offered Hawaii's choicest brew, and its reappearance can mean only one thing, farmers here say: even more demand.
"There's going to be a lot of people trying it again for the first time," said Greenwell.
Starbucks won't say how much 100 percent Kona coffee it bought to stock its stores with beans that went on sale this month in half- and full-pound bags priced at $19 and $35.
For years the chain said it had not been able to find an adequate supply even for a limited offering such as this one, but that changed.
Growers say Starbucks, in some ways, is responsible for Kona coffee's growth. Its track record of introducing coffee lovers to exclusive brews, combined with its remarkable growth, has fueled interest for specialty coffees.
Chris Gimbl, a spokesman for the company, said Starbucks' limited re-entry into the Kona market will have a negligible effect on prices, though a wide-scale Starbucks campaign would. Trouble is, the Kona market's current output probably couldn't fill all the cups it would have to in order to be a mainstay at a national coffee chain.
"If we burned up tomorrow, coffee drinkers just wouldn't have a nice cup of coffee to drink," Greenwell said, "but they would still have all the coffee they need."
