Heavenly may be the best way to describe
our experience of raising organic coffee in Kauai.
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Jay who helped with
the picking, pruning and pulping this year.
My wife Gigi and
our new daughter Jessica. The two best reasons for staying
at home to work on the farm
Yours truly pulping
coffee cherry at the end of a picking day
fermenting coffee
beans
Sun-drying coffee
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I'll try to paint a picture of our
Kauai organic coffee farm. Sitting on our lanai and looking west
to the majestic 2600 foot Mt. Wekiu, we view numerous waterfalls
cascading down the lush green slopes. Enclosed within the fencing,
five snowy white hair sheep work to keep the grass between the
coffee trees under control. During the heat of the day, they can
be found sleeping in the shade of the huge dense lychee trees
that dot the sloping terrain. Sometimes they can be found chewing
on the leaves of the banana trees that separate the north orchard
from the south orchard. To the north beyond the coffee orchard
are the jagged Anahola Mountains. Sudden showers from the east
occasionally interrupt the sun-filled days and the starry nights.
They announce their arrival with a hissing sound and the raindrops
patter melodicly on the metal roof. Rainbows frequently make their
magical appearance arching high above the forest canopy and over
our lusterous coffee groves. During the harvest season, coffee
pickers can be seen moving down the rows of trees in search of
only the best red-ripe coffee cherry, leaving the green berries
to ripen in their own time. Often you can enjoy the sweet fragrance
of fermenting coffee beans or the unmistakable scent of roasting
coffee beans, a sure lure for anyone passing by the farm. The
smoke from the roaster is carried along across the countryside
by the much-appreciated trade winds.
Not only the physical attributes
of this farm, but the life style it affords, contribute to the
heavenly nature of our life here. Working at home, having the
ability to care for our new daughter, sharing the farm responsibilities
with my wife, and meeting coffee lovers from around the world
add to the allure.
While our life here is mostly heavenly,
the truth of the matter is, and probably always will be, farming
is anything but an easy task. Now picture this: picking 100 pounds
of coffee cherry in a day, wet hulling it, removing the floaters
(useless beans) from each batch, and setting the beans out to
ferment. The beans have fermented while we sleep, and we rise
at daybreak to wash them and set them out on the drying racks.
The picking, wet hulling, etc. begins once again and will continue
for about 3 months until most of the cherry is harvested. Oh,
and every day the drying beans should be raked about every 3 hours
to ensure evenly dried beans. After about a week if the weather
cooperates the beans will reach a moisure content of about 11.5
percent and can be moved into the aging room to await dry hulling.
Grading the beans and removing defective beans is next. In the
end of the 100 pounds of picked cherry, 18 pounds of roasted coffee
is left. (sounds a bit like the maple sap/syrup story) Meanwhile,
there are still orders to fill, supplies to be restocked, fertilizing
to continue (organically and a challenge), mowing to be done,
and bills to be paid. And now that the harvest is complete, the
trees need to be pruned! The north orchard is now nothing but
trunks without branches and leaves; all the cuttings needed to
be chipped and carried away to mulch the remaining stumps. The
shimmering beauty of these trees should begin to return in a few
weeks, but some find it painful to look out at what presently
remains of the north orchard.
We are proud of our first harvest
and gratified by the smiles and lavish praises of customers who
have cupped our organically grown 100% Kauai coffee. Yes. being
a farmer is a lot of hard work, but it is well worth it.
