There are many things to be considered when selecting your Kona coffee including:

1. The quality of beans you're buying
2. Where it was packaged
3. When it was roasted

When I'm talking about the "quality" of the beans, one thing that's important is that it's 100% Kona. Many coffees that are called Kona blends may have only 10% Kona coffee in the can or bag and 90% of other blends of coffee. With a combination like this, you won't be able to get the true flavor and excellence characteristic of authentic Kona coffee. Hawaii laws state that the percentage of Kona must be on the label.

Quality of the beans is also a term used to describe the different grades of Kona coffee:

1. Extra Fancy
2. Fancy
3. Number 1
4. Select
5. Prime

The better the coffee (extra fancy), the less the percentage of defects you'll find in the coffee and the better the flavor. Any Kona coffee that has more than 15% defects is probably not worth buying. If you're dedicated to buying Kona coffee for its excellence, get the best that you can get.

Peaberry is another type of Kona coffee that is made when there is only one coffee bean instead of the customary two. This happens if only one side of the seed pod develops. Peaberry coffee is considered like royalty in the coffee family.

Once you've chosen the bean you want, pay attention to when it was roasted. Coffee will quickly lose its flavor after it's been roasted. In fact, approximately half of the flavor is lost two weeks after it was roasted. To get the best coffee, try to get it from a roaster or pay attention to the roasting date on the label. The longer a coffee is roasted, the darker it will be so this will be a deciding factor for you as well. The lighter the roast, the more caffeine there will be in the coffee. It's all a matter of personal taste. Now that you've learned some of the important aspects of selecting Kona coffee, you have the knowledge of how to get the best flavored Kona coffee.

The United States requires certification for their coffee and the Hawaii Department of Agriculture uses a grading system for their Kona coffee, which is based on certain factors which include the coffee bean's shape, size, moisture content as well as the number of defects that can be found in the bean itself. Generally, two Kona beans will grow inside a coffee cherry, except for Peaberry Kona Coffee, which is one bean per cherry. Following is a list of the different types of Kona Coffee, based on these factors.

• Extra Fancy – These coffee beans have the fewest defects (only 10 per pound), have a full flavor and comprise the largest variety of Kona coffee beans. They have a moisture content of only 9% to 12% and only account for about 20% of the Kona beans produced. Extra Fancy can be found in Private Reserve and Signature Roast coffees. These beans will not pass through a 19/64" hole.
• Fancy – These are large coffee beans with 9% to 12% moisture and 16 or less defects per pound. Found in Private Reserve Coffee, this fancy Kona has a smooth consistency with a medium body flavor. The beans will not go through an 18/64" hole.
• Number 1 Kona – These coffee beans with the nutty flavor are a mild and medium-sized bean. Their 9% to 12% moisture content and 20 or less defects per pound make it perfect for every-day drinking and can be found in Estate Kona Coffee. There 50 or less other beans per pound of Number 1 coffee.
• Peaberry Kona Coffee is a bean shaped like a pea with only one bean per coffee cherry. Peaberry beans are very small but give you a very robust and flavorful coffee. There are less than 20 defects per pound and 50 other beans per pound. To the coffee expert, Peaberry is considered the Royalty of coffees.
• Prime – This term may be used on the Kona Prime or the Peaberry Prime and describes beans with 25% defects per pound. They are a small coffee bean and are great for "estate" coffee.

Image by jspatchwork

Kona coffee, although unfamiliar to some, has actually been around for well over 100 years. John Wilkinson and his missionary Samuel Ruggles planted the first coffee in Kona in 1828. They brought some Brazilian cuttings and seedlings from Arabica trees into Oahu. Ruggles's original plan was to plant the coffee trees as ornamentals in his new West Hawaii home. At first it was an unsuccessful crop but the combination of the excellent Oahu island climate and rich volcanic soil grew an excellent crop. Warm sunny mornings with rainy afternoons and little wind are also consistent of the island and made for excellent growing conditions. The conditions had to be just right to grow a good crop of Kona coffee and they were perfect in Kona. What started off slowly soon became consistently successful crop. These plants and trees quickly changed from ornaments to the start of a very prosperous coffee industry.

The coffee crop was grown on large plantations where a lot could be produced at one time. In 1899, the worlds' coffee market crashed, which resulted in the owners of the plantation having to lease their land to their workers, which were imported from Japan. These workers, experienced in growing sugar cane, worked parcels of land from 5 to 10 acres in size as "family farms" and were extremely successful at growing high quality and large coffee crops. This tradition of family farms has continued throughout the years and is still large in Kona. Today, in addition to the Japanese workers, family farms are also run by Europeans, Filipinos and mainland Americans, making a total of 600 Kona coffee farms. In 1997, the production of green coffee was over two million pounds.

For years, Kona coffee was treasured by the rich and those desiring the very best in coffee. Even today, the area where excellent coffee can be grown is small, making the demand of Kona coffee even larger and the supply smaller.

Image courtesy of Old Hawaiian Coffee

By Graeme Ramsey

A good cup of coffee is like fine wine and good quality cigars. There are various different types of coffee beans and these determine the flavors that the blend presents for the coffee connoisseur.

Many coffee makers blend a combination of the lower cost Robusta beans with the more expensive Arabica gourmet beans. The Arabica beans have a finer aroma, a richer flavor and more body than the less expensive beans.

The quality of the coffee depends on the proportions of the mix of these beans. Quite often a coffee might be advertised as a blend of gourmet beans and lower grade beans when in fact there are only small traces of the gourmet beans in the blend.

The gourmet beans gain much of their flavor from the soil they are grown in, with the best beans, like Kona Coffee, coming from volcanic regions where the rich soil produce the best tasting beans.

Coffee should always be made from fresh beans as the quality diminishes rapidly with age. This is quite noticeable when comparing a supermarket grade coffee with a coffee made from freshly ground beans at a coffee shop. Bear in mind that the supermarket coffees generally have a lower blend quality and in many cases the blends also have a proportion of older beans to reduce the production costs.

The only way you can be assured of quality and taste is to buy fresh gourmet quality. Once you have acquired the taste for gourmet coffee you might never want to drink commercial grade coffee again.

You can buy coffee from many different regions throughout the world and each one has it's own unique flavor, but we feel you will have the finest experience when you buy Kona Coffee.

Coffee aficionados can pick the region where the coffee bean was grown just by tasting it. The method of processing the beans also has an effect on the final flavor so you can't always assume that a coffee will be good just because it came from a particular region.

Coffee is one of the world's most popular beverages and more suppliers are catering to the needs of an ever-growing demand.