PAHALA, Hawaii » Kau coffee farmer Lorie Obra has prized roasted coffees flying off the shelf at $80 a pound.
A few weeks ago Obra became one of three Kau coffee growers to place in the Specialty Coffee Association of America Roasters Guild Coffees of the Year Competition. She also is the Specialty Coffee Association of Europe’s 2010 Outstanding Producer, as well as Grand Champion of the Hawaii Coffee Association’s 2011 and 2010 statewide cupping contests.
"There are a lot of times that I have buyers lining up wanting to buy coffee, but no more coffee to sell," said Obra as she surveyed her coffee farm on the slopes of Mauna Loa, the world’s largest volcano.
The strength of Obra’s brand, Rusty’s Hawaiian, and of Kau coffee in general has been building since 2007 when farmers in the rural district started winning awards. Kau coffee, which is mostly grown and produced in Pahala, a former Hawaii island plantation town of 1,356 residents, is getting a big name.
Kau coffee is now a top seller at Hilo Hattie. Big retailers like Starbucks also sell limited quantities of Kau coffee special reserve for $25 a pound, and it is sold in Japan by QVC, a video and online retailer. Pete Licata, last year’s No. 1 U.S. barista and second best in the world, and master roaster Miguel Meza were so inspired by Kau’s emerging coffee industry that they moved to the district to develop the coffee from the fields to the cup. Celebrity chefs Alan Wong and Chai Chaowasaree also are fans of the brew, which they sell in their restaurants.
"Pavaraga, a peaberry coffee from Kau, is the most expensive coffee that I sell," Chaowasaree said. "It goes for $8 a cup. People love it. There’s plenty of demand."
Less than a decade ago, Kau coffee beans were rotting in bags. The coffee, which emerged as a brand after the Ka‘u Sugar Co. closed in 1996, was once overshadowed by the depth of Kona coffee’s following. A few Kau coffee farms closed when the owners were too poor to buy fertilizer, said Gloria Camba, president of the Ka‘u Coffee Growers Cooperative and grower of Ka‘u Royal, which is processed in her backyard.
"Kau coffee was not known," Camba said as she raked coffee beans to remove their dried parchment casing. "Everybody wanted to buy Kona, and nobody wanted to buy Kau coffee."
Not long ago, Kau farmer Melchor Fernandez was losing money.
"It was hard, still I never give up. I was selling (parchment, a partially processed bean) for $2 a pound. Now I get $7," said Fernandez, who supplies beans to Starbucks.
A pound of roasted Kau beans now fetches between $15 and $80, prices that are comparable with Kona.
It seems impossible that Kau’s small-scale growers, who farm about 400 acres, could have perfected their coffee in five years. But the isolation of Pahala, which is more than an hour from job centers in Hilo and even farther from Kailua-Kona, forced the community to compete with Kona’s 2,600-acre crop.
"You blink your eye and you are past Pahala. It’s a speck," said Wong, who was the first restaurateur on Oahu to carry Kau coffee. "It’s great to see their coffee get them recognition. You are talking about reviving a community and its spirit. It’s about respect."
Will Tabios turned to coffee farming after 17 years as a heavy equipment operator at the Pahala sugar plantation abruptly ended. He grows pensive as the painful memory of working Hawaii island’s last sugar haul surfaces. Though Tabios can trace his farming roots back to his native Philippines, making the switch to coffee was an adjustment.
"When first started, they tell us Kau coffee junk," Tabios said.
Tabios’ wife, Grace, a city girl from Manila, said she cried when she first saw the 7-acre coffee farm in the elevations above Highway 11 and historic Pahala Village.
"Even his mother said, ‘Why invest your money here? It’s just a stick,’" Grace said, gesturing to the farm’s mature trees now full with a money crop of red berries.
The farm became the producer of the region’s first prize-winning coffee when the Tabioses’ landlord Chris Manfredi convinced the couple and others to enter a Specialty Coffee Association of America contest. Manfredi, who owned a race car repair shop on Long Island, N.Y., moved to Kau after forming an investor group to buy 6,000 acres of former C. Brewer & Co. sugar land. He’s also the guy behind the Ka‘u Coffee Festival, started four years ago.
"I tasted the coffee, and I knew it was really good coffee but I had nothing to compare it with," Manfredi said. "The blind tastings proved me right."
Manfredi was not surprised when the Tabioses’ coffee brand, The Rising Sun, took sixth in the world, kicking off five years of prize-winning in the district. The success of the coffee, which also was a Specialty Coffee Association of America 2012 Coffee of the Year, paved the way for the couple to open the Will & Grace Filipino Variety Store in nearby Naalehu.
"Since we had a winning coffee and the festival, the community is coming alive again even though no more plantation," Tabios said.
Manfredi said nearly all of the farmers who lease land from him want more space.
For each 5 acres of new coffee growth, a job is created, estimates John Cross, land manager of the Edmund Olson Trust, which owns 13,600 acres of former sugar land. Kau’s coffee fields could double next year and in another five years could match Kona’s vast acreage, Cross said.
"Drought and the coffee borer beetle have devastated Kona’s crop. Since Hawaii is the only state that grows coffee, demand for a quality coffee is strong," Cross said.
World buyers who used to purchase tens of thousands of pounds of Kona coffee are calling Kau farmers, he said.
"But if I sell 10,000 pounds to Germany, there wouldn’t be enough for the local market," Cross said.
While it is possible for Kau coffee to replicate what is happening in Kona and in larger markets across the isles, ultimately, it’s the small community of farmers who will determine the market’s growth, said Russell Kokubun, chairman of the state Board of Agriculture.
Unlike Kona growers, who are constrained by the region’s rocky terrain, some Kau farmers could use the district’s flatter lands for large-scale mechanized operations, Kokubun said.
Handpicked coffee and backyard processing are likely to continue in Kau; however, the recent opening of the Ka‘u Coffee Mill is a sign of times to come, he said. The mill, which was privately funded by landowner Ed Olson, is expected to become a commercial center and tourist attraction, Kokubun said.
Olson also is funding a Keaiwa Reservoir hydroelectric project, Cross said.
"It would power the mill and hundreds of Pahala homes," he said. "We’ve got Kau’s future in mind."
Kau’s emerging coffee economy and the infrastructure surrounding it have enlivened the town where unemployment is still about 9.5 percent and nearly 22 percent of people live below the poverty line.
"The closure of the sugar killed the pride, and families moved away," said Francis Marques, who grows Ali‘i Hawaiian Hula Hands Coffee, a 2012 Specialty Coffee Association of America Coffee of the Year, on land abandoned by another coffee farmer. "People thought all the coffee farmers were crazy, but we proved it could be done. I’m proud to say more and more are coming back."
