KONA >> “I never met a farmer who doesn’t make the best coffee in Kona,” quipped Tom Greenwell, himself a Kona coffee farmer. “We tend to be a little biased about our own coffee. It’s because we get used to the taste.”

But in today’s market, that can be a handicap, said the fourth-generation farmer and president of Greenwell Farms, which mills and roasts its own award-winning Kona coffee. Over the decades, Greenwell has seen the coffee industry evolve.

“Before, it was grow and sell to a co-op or mill — Kona blends use up the coffee and keep the price up,” he said. “Today, the specialty market is booming. People are a lot more independent. They want to market with their own label, their own brand.

“Now, it’s how do you stand apart? How are you distinct from the coffee down the road?”

These days, specialty coffee — coffee with top ratings — is what offers farmers top dollar. Even in the realm of Kona coffee, famed for its smooth, balanced, flavorful bean, quality can be all over the map. Given the market, the million-dollar question is: How can a farmer produce specialty coffee?

Until last year, Greenwell entered cupping competitions, arenas for the scoring that determines whether a coffee makes the specialty cut.

“Used to be, we just took our coffee and entered. If we didn’t win … nobody could tell us why,” he said. “We’ve won lots, but the main reason to go out there … was to get our bearings on where we stand.”

Enter Pacific Coffee Research, a coffee education center dedicated to nurturing the specialty coffee industry in Hawaii. Owned by Brittany Horn and Brian Webb, the company opened last year to provide training for baristas, roasters and retailers. The partners are authorized by the international Specialty Coffee Association, or SCA, to train professionals seeking licenses and certification. It’s also a place where any of the state’s nearly 1,000 coffee farms looking to raise the bar on their coffees can have their beans assessed.

THE QUALITY of a coffee is determined through “cupping” — brewing it and analyzing its aroma and flavor. Cupping scores 10 characteristics: fragrance, flavor, acidity, sweetness, body, balance, uniformity of flavor (among five cups prepared of the same coffee), cleanness (freedom from off-flavors), after­taste and overall impression. A coffee scoring 80 points or better is categorized as a specialty coffee.

Cupping eliminates subjectivity from the equation, with beans evaluated under strict, standardized conditions that strip all personal rituals from the process.

“Let’s say you drink your coffee every morning while relaxing on the porch. That’s part of what enhances the enjoyment of drinking that coffee. Cupping removes that outside influence,” said Horn.

How do you unteach preference?

Objectivity starts with the space where the cupping takes place. Everything from the color of the walls to table height, cupping bowls, the shape and length of spoons, and the temperature and humidity of the room are consistent from one cupping space to the next.

“There’s usually a red light that cancels your ability to see the roast,” said Webb. “Even the kinds of posters on the walls are standardized. This is part of why our space is authorized as an SCA premier campus.”

The process: The same amount of freshly ground coffee is placed in five separate cups, a set amount of 200-degree water is poured in a uniform manner into each cup and the coffee is steeped three to five minutes. Then, using spoons, the “crust” (floating grounds) is broken and the coffee is sniffed and tasted.

“The goal and intent is that no matter where a coffee is cupped in the world, its scores should be similar,” he said.

For farmers, the assessment starts before the cupping process, at the “green seed” level prior to roasting. Seeds are examined for a list of defects, including mold, chips and perforations. Even lower-grade seeds can be lightly roasted and cupped to reveal their potential, providing farmers with a baseline from which to build.

“When farmers understand how to taste and talk about their coffees, they can decide: Is the processing of their coffees working from year to year? What other customers can their coffees reach?” said Horn.

Along with expanding the state’s specialty coffee industry, the center aims to raise the profile of Hawaii coffee across the globe. Webb and Horn are working to establish connections with Asia, especially Japan, where interest in coffee is high but there are too few educators to meet demand. They are also promoting Hawaii to U.S. coffee professionals as an ideal place to conduct research, much more convenient than a locale outside the country.

“There’s no need to get a visa,” said Horn. “For U.S. learners, you can’t get this experience at any other campus in the U.S. Pacific Coffee Research is located at origin surrounded by active coffee farms.”

AT TWO events this summer, Horn and Webb saw some of their goals taking shape. Last month, the center hosted U.S. CoffeeChamps Brewers Cup preliminaries on Oahu. “The coolest part is that farmers who grew the coffees we used were there,” said Horn. “They could see the interest and the potential of the market.”

In July, the center organized the Hawaii Coffee Association’s 10th Annual Statewide Cupping Competition using exclusively local judges, an important move for both experts and farmers.

“It builds credibility for local experts, and it gives farmers access to those experts,” said Horn, adding that the center is aggregating the results to pass on to farmers. “To make an industry sustainable, you must develop the credibility of local experts.”