We enjoy visiting coffee farms that offer tours. You learn about coffee and coffee farming and you often have the opportunity to view other crops in the wild. We visited Greenwell Farms last time we were on the Big Island and knew they did things a lot different than the massive farm with visited on Kauai.
Our tour guide had the perfect personality and background for his job. He recounted his experience growing up picking coffee by hand in the same way it is still harvested on this farm and others in the area. It seems that many coffee farms near Kona are very small and are mostly a second income for those who own the land. Farmers may have a hundred trees or so. Greenwell had thousands of trees. The farm we visited in Kauai had 4 million and did everything with machinery.
I remember seeing some red coffee fruit the last time we were here. It must have been earlier than this visit as the plants were mostly flowering with a few green fruit forming.
Greenwell has the capacity to process coffee through to the finished product. As such, it provides services to the surrounding small farms. Here a worker rakes beans drying in the sun. This is after the red part of the cherry has been removed.
Many coffee freaks may know that there has been a growing pest problem with a small parasite (about the size of a flea). This pest attacks the bean itself. The bean next to the host's finger shows the damage done and these damaged beans are grounds (no pun intended) for downgrading the quality of the coffee that is sold. While more widely known, this parasite is considered a somewhat less serious problem than a fungus that is attacking coffee plants. The parasite only ruins coffee berries and the fungus kills the plant.
Coffee is not the only crop gown on the farm. Here are pictures of red avocado and soursop.
Yes, we did purchase some Kona coffee. If I remember accurately, the cost was $38 a pound. I guess this would have to be regarded as a premium product.
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