Coffee day

Today we visited the Kauai Coffee Plantation. I am a fan of fine coffees and enjoy plantations visits. The Kauai Plantation is the largest in the U.S. with 3100 acres of coffee in cultivation.

The size of the plantation requires a very mechanized approach. Coffee is harvest using the machine shown below which was originally used to harvest blueberries.

I must say that the samples were great and I made some purchases to be consumed during the rest of our trip. I will have to decide about ordering.

My other experience with coffee harvesting and processing was on the Big Island. There Kona coffee was harvest by hand and we were able to view how the coffee was processed. Very different approaches - hand labor vs. mechanized - to accomplish pretty much the same thing.

The difference between scale and craft seems to be a major division in the way the world is moving.