Kona Coffee Location: Kailua-Kona, Hawaii Day 5 by Wayne & Karen Brown

We are driving down the west coast of Hawaii, south of Kailua-Kona. As we drive south it gets more hilly and green. This area gets more rain, so there are more plants growing here than around Kailua-Kona. The plants are also bigger and greener, too. This thick, green jungle of plants is more of what we expected Hawaii to look like.

As we drive south, along the coast we notice that many people have homes here. One home we drive by we have to stop and go back to see. We can't believe what we see! It is a manatee mail box! There are no manatees in Hawaii. The only place we have seen manatees is in Florida. The people that live here are probably from Florida. We think this is funny because our very first Internet expedition was The Crystal River Florida Manatee Expediton! (Click here to see our The Crystal River Florida Manatee Expediton.)

If your parents drink coffee you may have heard about a special kind of coffee, called "Kona Coffee". Kona coffee is actually from the Kona coast of Hawaii! Coffee did not grow on Hawaii until the first coffee plants were brought here from from Brazil by an English captain in 1842.

On a side road we see a sign for a coffee plantation, so we thought you might like to see where Kona coffee comes from.

At the coffee plantation we discover that a coffee plant is not a tree, but a shrub. When we walk up to the plant (in the rain!) we see it has lots of green and red berries on it. These berries are where the coffee beans come from! The red berries are the ripe ones. We pick one of the red berries and squeeze it. The bean pops out of its red skin! Actually, there are two beans in each berry. Each bean looks like one-half of a peanut! Even though the outside of the beans are slimy we put the beans in our mouths and suck on them. They don't taste like coffee. They have kind of a lemony taste.

Before the beans can be made into coffee they have to be washed, dried and roasted in special roasting ovens. When the beans are roasted they turn the dark brown color that people think coffee is supposed to look like. These dark beans are what people grind up and pour hot water on to make coffee.

After trying some fresh Kona coffee, we run through the rain, back to our SUV, to explore more of Hawaii's south-west coast. Further down the road we see a sign for another kind of plantation. This is a macadamia nut plantation! We drive down a side road to investigate this plantation, too.

At the macadamia nut plantation we discover that macadamia nut trees are really big trees! Even though Hawaii grows most of the world's macadamia nuts, these trees, like the coffee plants, are not native to Hawaii. The first macadamia nut trees were brought to Hawaii from Australia in the late 1800's. The trees were not brought to Hawaii for the nuts. People thought the trees and their leaves were pretty, so they were brought to decorate people's yards! It was not until the early 1900's that people discovered that the nuts make a great snack food. After that Hawaiians started to plant macadamia nut trees and sell the nuts around the world!

We walk up to one of the macadamia nut trees and can see lots of green and brown balls (about the size of large gum balls), hanging in bunches from the branches. The brown balls are the ones ready for picking.

We discovered that it takes a lot of work to get to the macadamia nut inside! After picking a nut off the tree we have to put the nut in a special machine that removes the nut's thick, brown husk. What we have now is the nut inside a very hard brown shell. We can't break open the nut with our bare hands, or even a nut cracker like one you may have at home. We have to put the nut in a heavy, special macadmia nut cracker that is bolted to a table. We push hard down on a long metal handle to finally crack open the nut...A lot of work for just one nut! (With this much work to open one we can see why they are so expensive!) The light brown nut is inside is about the size of a gum ball. We taste the nut. It tastes good. It is sweet and mild tasting.

Before we left the macadamia nut plantation we bought a bunch of macadamia nut goodies -- macadamia nut carmel popcorn, chocolate-covered macadamia nuts, macadamia nut brittle, and roasted macadamia nuts.

We take our goodies back to the SUV and now it is time for us to return to our base in Kailua-Kona. The weather is getting nicer and the ocean is calming, so we may be able to make our first scuba dive tomorrow.

Join us tomorrow as we try to do our first underwater explorations of Hawaii.

Best Fishes,
Wayne & Karen Brown

These people have a manatee mail box! Manatees don't live in Hawaii, they live in Florida!

Karen is standing next to a coffee tree. (Enlarge the photo and look for the green and red berries on the tree -- these are the coffee beans!)

Karen is holding a ripe coffee berry and the beans that are inside of a ripe coffee bean. These beans have to be roasted before they can be made into coffee.

Karen is standing next to a big macadamia nut tree.

Karen is holding a macadamia that she cracked open. You can see the light brown nut surrounded by its very hard shell.