One of the leaders in Hawaii’s coffee industry didn’t drink his first cup of java until he was 40 years old. "I thought coffee was for old people," said Trent Bateman, founder, owner and president of Mountain Thunder Coffee Plantation, the state’s largest organic coffee farm. "If I needed a pick-me-up, I’d have a Classic Coke."

In 1993, Waiele Drilling, a for-profit subsidiary of Bishop Estate (now Kame­ha­meha Schools), lured Bateman, a mechanical engineer, from Newport Beach, Calif., to Hawaii island. It was a job he thought he’d have until he retired.

"But the IRS was frowning on nonprofit organizations having for-profit arms, so Bishop Estate put Wai­ele up for sale in 1998 and gave the employees five years’ notice," Bateman said. "If no buyer was found, Wai­ele would be shut down, which is what happened. Thankfully, I had five years to figure something out."

That "something" was Mountain Thunder. Bateman and his wife, Lisa, had bought a 20-acre parcel in Kaloko Mauka in 1992 because they liked the house on it and its incredible view of the west coast. Their property is 3,300 feet above sea level, which the old-timers told Bateman was too high, too cool, to grow coffee.

But around Christmas in 1992, he planted an Arabica Typica coffee tree in his front yard anyway. Six years later, when he got word that he’d be losing his job with Wai­ele, the tree was 8 feet tall with ripe red cherries.

"I was in the yard playing with my dog, looked at the tree and thought, ‘Hmmm, so coffee can grow here,’" Bateman recalled. "I picked the cherries, dried them on a window sill, roasted them in a cast-iron pan, ground them and on Christmas morning in 1998, I made my first cup of coffee. That’s when I decided to go for it — start a coffee farm."

Over the next five years, Bateman and his wife planted 10,000 trees on their property with picks and shovels. He learned how to process coffee by reading books, experimenting and making a lot of mistakes. Using his expertise as an engineer, he designed and built processing equipment, wet and dry mills and a roasting kitchen.

It’s all paid off. Celebrating its 15th anniversary this year, Mountain Thunder has won numerous awards, including a Certified Gold Bean Award at the 2012 Coffee Cup by SIAL competition in Montreal. Each year, SIAL (Salon International de l’Alimentation), the world’s leading network of food industry trade shows, draws 200,000 visitors from 200 countries to its shows in Paris, Shanghai, Sao Paulo, Abu Dhabi and Montreal/Toronto.

Mountain Thunder grows Arabica Typica on 150 acres in various sites along the Kona Coast. In up-country Kaloko Mauka, the cherries take nine months to mature instead of the six months at the 800- to 2,000-foot elevation where Kona coffee usually grows.

"By being on the tree longer, our beans at Kaloko Mauka develop more intense sugars, starches and flavors," Bateman said. "We harvest once a week year-round there because the cherries appear sporadically. Our other coffee farms are on the normal harvest cycle, which is August through January."

The entire Bateman family keeps Mountain Thunder running smoothly. Lisa is the office manager, son Bryce is the farm manager and daughter Brooke does most of the roasting. Bateman supervises mill operations and is responsible for overall quality control.

Tours, which cover the coffee production process, from growing the trees to packaging the finished product, started in 2004. In addition to four roasts (light, medium, dark and a light-dark blend called Black and Tan), Mountain Thunder’s big sellers include coffee flower honey, Kona coffee cherry tea and beauty products that Brooke makes from coffee cherry extracts.

Today, Bateman wakes up every morning with two cups of Mountain Thunder coffee. "My favorite is Black and Tan because it has the smoky notes of the dark roast and the creamy citrus notes of the light roast," he said. "If we run out of coffee at home, I’ll open the gift shop in the dark at 5 in the morning to get it. I’ve developed a taste for fine coffee. The guy who never drank coffee until he was 40 years old is now a coffee snob."

Cheryl Chee Tsutsumi is a Honolulu-based freelance writer whose travel features for the Star-Advertiser have won several Society of American Travel Writers awards.