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Bordering a mile-long stretch of Highway 50 in Kalaheo, Kauai Coffee’s trees create a green coverlet as far as the eye can see. Some 4 million trees flourish on 3,100 acres, making Kauai Coffee the largest coffee plantation in the United States.
IF YOU GO …
Kauai Chocolate & Coffee Festival
>> Place: Hanapepe, Kauai
>> Dates: Friday and Saturday
>> Times: Friday, 5 to 9 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
>> Admission: Free for browsing, but attendees must buy “passports” to get chocolate and coffee samples and other offerings (see details below). Food, nonalcoholic drinks, arts and crafts will also be available for purchase.
>> Phone: 223-6040
>> Email: info@Kauai ChocolateAnd CoffeeFestival.com
>> Website: Kauai ChocolateAnd CoffeeFestival.com
Notes: Passports can be purchased online in advance for $12 ($18 at the event while supplies last). Passport holders will receive a tote bag, vendor discounts and more than a dozen chocolate and/or coffee tastings of their choice.
Shuttle service will run every 10 minutes from 5 to 9 p.m. Friday between the tennis courts on Puolo Road, where there’s plenty of free parking, and the festival site at Hanapepe Town Park on Kona Road behind the fire station. Check the website for stops.
As a child growing up in Ohio, Amy Hammond marveled at similar spectacles as her family drove from their home in Columbus to their vacation house 60 miles away at Indian Lake.
“Fields and orchards were everywhere,” Hammond said. “I loved stopping along the way to pick and eat strawberries on the spot and buy bushels of corn, beans and other veggies. Farmers sometimes gave me a peach or an apple. It was inspiring to see those wide-open spaces and taste all kinds of fresh, delicious produce.”
Hammond is executive director of the Hawaii Chocolate and Cacao Association and president of Special Events Hawaii, a marketing and advertising company specializing in large-scale community events. The founder of the annual Hawaii Chocolate Festival at Ward Village and the Kauai Chocolate & Coffee Festival in Hanapepe, she is a champion of local crops and the dedicated farmers who grow them.
“I started the Hawaii Chocolate Festival in 2011 to spotlight our growing cacao industry,” Hammond said. “Hawaii’s chocolate is on a par with the finest in the world, and that’s something we should be proud of and support. Seeing the success of that festival in Honolulu, I envisioned expanding it to the neighbor islands.”
Chatting one day, she and her good friend Joanna Carolan, owner of the Aloha Spice Co. and Banana Patch Studio in Hanapepe, thought pairing chocolate with coffee at a new Kauai event would be great, especially since the island claims vast Kauai Coffee and several cacao farms and chocolate producers.
In 2012 they began discussing the idea with the Hanapepe Economic Alliance, comprising a dozen business owners in the town (Carolan serves as a board member). The organization signed on as a partner, and last year’s inaugural Kauai Chocolate & Coffee Festival turned out to be two days of fabulous family-friendly fun.
“Coffee and chocolate won’t feed the world like rice, corn and other staples, but they bring people such pleasure,” Hammond said. “The festival provides a wonderful opportunity for visitors and kamaaina to talk story with local farmers, roasters, chefs, chocolatiers, baristas and manufacturers. Dozens of coffee and chocolate products from throughout Hawaii will be available to sample and buy.”
Among them will be luscious dark chocolates in the shape of pineapples, plumerias and other Hawaiian icons made by Hammond, who learned the art of chocolate making from her mother when she was a girl. Later, she delighted friends and family with gifts of homemade chocolates, a hobby that led to the launch of the Aloha Chocolate Co.
“I’m officially the president,” Hammond said, “but I usually refer to myself as the CCT — chief chocolate taster.”
In addition, Kauai Chocolate & Coffee Festival attendees can learn how cacao and coffee are grown, how chocolate is made from cacao beans, how coffee is roasted and graded, and how to distinguish the different flavors of chocolate and coffee. There will also be keiki activities, educational displays and workshops, a silent auction and nonstop entertainment.
“The festival is a celebration of all things chocolate and coffee,” Hammond said. “It shows how our quality of life can be enhanced one cup and one square at a time.”
HIGHLIGHTS
Workshops are limited to 12 people; sign up online (first come, first served).
FRIDAY
5 p.m.: “Coffee on the Brain,” $15
Susan Gray, coffee trainer/concierge of Kauai Coffee, describes how the five senses respond as coffee is prepared. Also on Saturday at 10 a.m. Hanapepe Cafe, 3830 Hanapepe Road.
6 p.m.: “Changing the Way We Think About Chocolate,” $25 (includes two chocolate samples)
Will Lydgate, owner and manager of Steelgrass Farm, explains how chocolate went from being regarded as a revered food long ago to unhealthy today. Also on Saturday at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. Hanapepe Cafe.
SATURDAY
10 a.m.: Create art with paint and cacao and coffee leaves. Continuous screenings of “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.” Storybook Theatre, 3814 Hanapepe Road.
2 p.m.: Chocolate coin hunt for kids. Storybook Theatre.
3 p.m.: “Growing Coffee,” $15
Fred Cowell, president of Kauai Coffee, discusses climate, soil and other conditions that are needed to cultivate coffee. Hanapepe Cafe.
Cheryl Chee Tsu tsumi is a Honolulu-based freelance writer whose travel features for the Star-Advertiser have won several Society of American Travel Writers awards.
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