After a long busy and hectic day, nothing seems more relaxing and refreshing than a cup of coffee. Whatever taste or type of coffee you enjoy; you are not going to stop as it’s more or less your habit now. Besides, coffee is also a health supplement that keeps you healthy and refreshing.

Organic coffee is even healthier which is grown using organic methods… read more on Keala’s Hawaiian Coffee Blog 

After growing for almost a half century, Hawaiian Coffee witnessed a sudden decline in the demands and it was substituted by the growing and robust sugar industry. By the end of the 19th century it seemed Hawaiian coffee chapter was going to close forever. Almost all farmers and landlords abandoned coffee plantation and switched to more demanding sugar cultivation.

But then World War I broke out and the demand for coffee increased as a sustenance for the troops. Suddenly, coffee was one of the most talked about beverage in the world. For almost a decade, coffee production continued to soar and some enthusiasts tried to revive Hawaiian Coffee.

In 1940s, during the World War Two, the demand for coffee again soared to an all time high as the military stocked up on provisions. Demand for Hawaiian coffee remained on a cyclical up and down trend for the coming fifty years. The 90s were the era of coffee revitalization, and as the only coffee grown in the United States, Hawaiian coffee continues to remain a highly marketed and sought-after beverage product to this day.

Ironically, the bulk of Hawaiian coffee roasters today use this highly marketable product to their vested interests by offering flavored “Hawaiian” blends such as Vanilla Macadamia Nut or Coconut. Moreover, these blends often include as little Hawaiian coffee as possible and use different cheaper blender coffees. It is up to the coffee roasters to keep the pride and high quality of Hawaiian Coffee and ensure they use at least 20% of it in every blend.

Keala’s Hawaiian Coffee – Your ultimate Source for the freshest Hawaiian Kona Coffee in Seattle, WA. keala’s hawaiian coffee produces the best quality hawaiian coffee, hawaii coffee, hawaiian Kona coffee. We choose only the best quality Hawaiian coffees and expertly blend them with only the best coffees from around the world to make a coffee better than the sum of its parts
We choose only the best quality Hawaiian coffees and expertly blend them with only the best coffees from around the world to make a coffee better than the sum of its parts. In doing so, Keala’s Hawaiian Coffee is truly a product as exceptional and multi-cultured as the people of Hawaii.

Our years of experience in blending, roasting, and preparing coffee through working in the Seattle coffee industry give us an edge over our competition. This pride in craftsmanship gives us a unique ability to offer our Hawaiian coffees as pure high-grade coffee.

When choosing and roasting our coffees; we keep in mind the hard work and pride that went in to growing these beans. Our job as a roaster is to ensure that the quality of these beans shines through to the customer as an excellent cup of coffee

Source:  - Keala’s Hawaiian Coffee

The short answer has to be, ’because we love it’. If you’re into great coffee, and totally appreciate tasting something unique that differentiates itself from other products in the same category – you’d be a great tester at Kohana’s cupping table. We look for coffee’s that make us involuntarily say ‘ahhh’, or mutter, ‘mmm’. We taste test, re-test, modify, compare and experiment on a daily basis – always challenging ourselves against our norms.

Still not convinced?

1)    We do it because we couldn’t find great coffee and wanted it – badly. After falling in love with great tasting coffees in Hawaii years ago we searched everywhere to replicate the experience and found very little. That should be reason enough to start a business, right?

2)    We do it because we want to share that experience with those we know love it as much as we do. And there are a lot of you out there – thank God – and your input is invaluable to how we do business.

3) We do it because we want to share with those that are open to fresh, new and mostly better ways to drinking coffee. We love turning people on to something new that they can fall in love with.

4)    We do it because it challenges us – daily – and we never stop learning through this process. Specialty Coffee as an industry demands excellence and that is our motivator.

5)    We do it because it helps us meet you. Our team consists of appreciators – we find something great and want to tell you about it. Luckily, Austin has a large grouping that respects and cherishes the idea of just this; unique, great offerings worth the extra effort to obtain. But it doesn’t stop there – through Twitter and FaceBook we’ve gotten to interact and learn from many more of you out there. Thank you for finding us!

6)    We do it because it’s fun. Oh yeah, it’s non-stop hard work – but working that hard at something you love, for the most part, doesn’t feel like ‘work’. We love that.

So, our question back – why do you do what you do?

Kohana Coffee was recently chosen as a www.RegionalBest.com vendor – you really need to know this website. It’s an artisan food marketplace, where shoppers buy direct from food artisans and producers across the country, including farmers, bakers, chocolatiers, cheesemakers and other small family-owned businesses (like us!). They’re committed to helping us small producers who champion local foods and flavors to move beyond our local markets and thrive by reaching a national audience. How great is that?

RegionalBest.com was launched by Marsha Cade of suburban Philly (originally a west Texas girl!) and Caragh Whalen of suburban Boston – both food lovers/appreciators, as well as smart, seasoned business execs, moms and entrepreneurs. To know us is to understand that we also stand behind them for these very reasons. They are also coffee fanatics which carries them ‘over the top’ in our book.

Kohana has nine coffees offered on their site; one being the brand spankin’ new Alamo Joe, created exclusively for RegionalBest (see the fun we had in the coffee naming blog below). Not only are our incredible Hawaiian selections available (Hawaiian Select, Hawaiian Prime, 100% Kona Estate and our popular signature, Kohana Blend) but we’ve added our Texas presence with Rockin’ Like Austin that’s topping the charts in the Lone Star state and the new Alamo Joe. To showcase the other growing regions of the world we’ve topped off our grouping with a lovely medium roast Kenya AA, dark roasted Kohana Panama and our wonderful decaf offering of Decaf Kohana Blend.

We’re very excited to work with these women because we value what they do, both as consumers and as a vendor partner. Our hat is off – congrats to everyone on their team for a perfect idea and great execution.

Some of this feels like our day to day in Austin, some of it feels surreal because we’re in HAWAII working. Work and Hawaii almost feels like an oxymoron…what, you mean I have to get out of the water for a call? Wait, get the saltwater out of my eyes, sand off my hands…

So we set our work hours in the early morning – trying to coincide with those working so hard in our absence at Kohana headquarters in Austin. We get as much done as we can in that window of time – and then we relax, or at least we try our best with the little ones pulling to play.

Fortunately, and we mean this, we’re in the heart of birthplace to these two great coffees right now. Both the Select and Prime are from Waialua Coffee located on the North Shore of Oahu – a perfect location for producing world class coffee. We’ve had the distinct pleasure of making friends with Derek Lanter, who continues to improve these coffees with great attention to quality – which is evident in the coffees we roast and eventually cup. We’ll be bringing more to you on this later.

As an added treat – the North Shore is also home to some of the most famous surf spots in the world. Even though surf is small in non-winter months we sometimes have the opportunity to see it – pictured here is a day at the 2008 Triple Crown in December – Bonzai Pipeline.

Aloha for now…

Piper