When it comes to Hawaiian coffee, there are a ton of preconceived notions. Some believe it is the very best coffee in the world, while others tend to think of it as overpriced coffee geared towards the tourist market. Yet over the past few years, specialty grade offerings from Hawaii have only grown in reputation and quality, and all the while, our sourcing team has been on the lookout in effort to find the perfect opportunity to share a superb Hawaiian coffee with our community.

This harvest year was a remarkable one for the folks at MTZ Ka’u Farms, perhaps the very best, we’re told, since their founding in 2021. This is in spite of a relatively new obstacle that Hawaiian coffee producers are encountering. CLR, or coffee leaf rust, is a fungal infection that targets the foliage of coffee plants and hampers their ability to photosynthesize the nutrients needed for the plants to produce at their full potential. This fungal parasite is nothing new to coffee producers the world over, and has been wreaking havoc on coffee harvests since it was first discovered around Lake Victoria in Africa in 1861, but for a long while it had yet to land in Hawaii. This all changed in October of 2020 when it was first spotted in the Kona Belt, then within the span of only a few months CLR spread rapidly. Shortly thereafter, it has been found in every growing region on the islands. However, this has not dampened the enthusiasm of the coffee producing community in Hawaii as farmers have quickly adapted their methods to combat this challenge.

Though we sampled over a dozen coffees throughout the last year from nearly every coffee producing region in the Hawaiian archipelago, this spring, we began narrowing our focus on offerings produced specifically in Hawaii County, which is colloquially referred to as “the Big Island”. In late April we received a forward sample from MTZ Farms in Pahala, Hawaii. At once, this offering proved to be exceptional, with a cup profile that exceeded our expectations not only for its unique and dynamic flavor, but for how clean and remarkable its expression was.

While there is a great deal of hype surrounding coffees specifically grown within the Kona belt, this coffee is grown on the southern side of the Big Island, and to the east of the Volcano National Park in a region called Ka’u. This lesser known region has ideal growing conditions for coffee, as it gets full sun in the mornings, cool mountain air from the volcanoes to the west, light rains during the afternoon, and of course, extremely rich volcanic soil that is replenished with the frequent eruptions from Kilauea and Mauna Loa. This lot is a single cultivar called Typica, a very common variety grown in Hawaii, that has been sorted for size, color and defect multiple times before it was bagged for shipment.

This offering is made possible by direct trade with the Martinez family and the team at MTZ Coffee Farms, where we paid full price directly to the folks who produced this excellent coffee. While we have done our best to keep this coffee as affordable as possible, Hawaiian coffees are some of the most expensive in the world and there are a multitude of reasons as to why. The key factors revolve around the high cost of Hawaiian real estate and more importantly, the cost of American labor. The latter of these two is crucial to understanding the true cost of coffee around the world, as coffee, like a great many other industries, relies on inexpensive, and often very difficult labor in order to keep prices artificially low. With this in mind, it’s important for specialty coffee enthusiasts to understand that coffee will only ever get more expensive, and indeed it should if we ever hope to build a more sustainable and ethical trade around this consumer good that most folks enjoy on a daily basis. We’ve been working on getting a coffee such as this in our lineup for a long while now, and cannot overstate just how excited we are to be able to share it with our community. We only hope you enjoy it as much as we have. We have a very limited amount, so act fast to try out this one-of-a-kind coffee!

This remarkably clean washed coffee boasts a unique profile that lends itself to the umami side of the flavor wheel. In this cup you’ll find notes of a dry drinking chocolate, savory and herbal nori, and a crisp green tea finish.