Author: Les

We’ve grown cacao for 21 years at Blair Estate, and over that time we’ve enjoyed the process of making chocolate, but never commercially. Now after all these years we are finally making our own chocolate bars and placing them in stores around Hawaii for sale, and for purchase direct from us through the mail. Having experimented with many parts of the process, including inoculants, roast, and melanging we are at a point of growth and commercial production as we scale up our equipment to meet the new demand. 2022 should be very exciting as new shiny machines on the farm are always a welcome sight!

Strolling through the tunneling coffee orchard, under the chocolate trees, and on my way to the oranges that are needed for the cranberry sauce I stopped to take a look at the approaching winter harvest. With cacao in the fermenter, and in the solar driers, and tons of new coffee all bagged up and aging in burlap there is a lot to be thankful for on the farm. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone as we share the day with those closest to us. We are grateful for friends, customers, and the continued bounty. Aloha to all from Les, Gigi, Jessica and Jorgen.

I usually find that the quiet of a Sunday morning to be a great time to taste and enjoy coffee. So I drove into Kapaa town early to pick up a new carton of my favorite grass fed milk, only to find that it is temporarily sold out. For those who are unaware, milk plays a huge and integral part in the making of any coffee. That’s right, without the use of high grade (high fat content with a natural sweetness) milk, and the knowledge of how to heat or steam it, a great coffee can be ruined. I suppose it’s espresso for me, today!

I’ve got a lot of fermentation experiments being conducted with coffee, chocolate these days. Decided to use my small Behmor chocolate roaster for a small test batch. I did a 12 minute, 30 second City roast. Amazing result and my new favorite coffee. Unusual because I’ve always enjoyed roasting my favorite farm beans in the large Diedrich at 433F for around 15 minutes. No idea what temperature the beans reached in the Behmor, but it was a quick roast and the second crack rolled in fast and furiously. My guess is that the beans retained more of their raw essence flavor as it was such a fast cook.

Loving the conversations with the lab guys on the microbial forces behind fermentations. So much to discover as we’ve grown and produced coffee in virtually the same way on the farm for nearly 20 years. Exciting, and we can’t wait to taste next spring. Yes, coffee needs to age to find its perfect self.