Hawaii is famous for their Kona coffee. With almost 1000 coffee growers on the island and a history of growing coffee here since the 1820s, touring a Kona coffee farm has to be on your Hawaii bucket list. 

Most of the coffee farms on the Big Island are located south of Kona, and there are PLENTY to choose from. A lot of people visit coffee farms in Kona like they visit wineries in Napa. They’ll pick several and do a “crawl” from one to another tasting and buying product as they go.

 

I’ll confess…I’m not a huge coffee drinker or coffee connoisseur so trust me when I tell you that this is something you should do even if you’re just casually interested. 

There are 20 or so different farms and roasters that offer tours on the island so (I think) it’s a little overwhelming to narrow it down. A lot of places have free tours and some charge for a more premium tasting experience. 

Greenwell Farm Kona Coffee Tour

I just did the free tour at Greenwell Farm and I was really impressed. The tours are supposed to be 45-55 minutes, but ours ended up being almost 90 minutes because people had so many questions. We saw a lot more than I thought we would, and our tour guide was exceptional. I’ve done paid tours in Costa Rica that weren’t as good. 

Tours are offered daily (at 9:00AM, 10:00AM, 10:30AM, 11:00AM, 11:30AM, 12:00PM, 12:30PM, 1:00PM, 1:30PM, 2:00PM, 2:30PM, and 3:00PM) and no reservations are required. They have plenty of coffee varieties set up for tastings all day and people onsite to answer questions. 

Greenwell Farm is a 5th generation family owned coffee farm that’s been operating since 1850. They have 200,000 coffee trees on their property and they’ve been leading the efforts to graft a species of coffee tree that will thrive against growing beetle and fungus problems in Hawaii. 

When I toured Greenwell (early November) there wasn’t much to see on the coffee trees (no blooms or cherries), but there was still a LOT to see on the property. We saw the wet mill facility, several rows of coffee trees, the nursery, and even some other crops like bananas and black pepper. 

Greenwell offers a paid private tour that includes the cupping room, roasting room, wet mill, farm, nursery and dry mill plus a guided coffee tasting.

I’m sure if you’re really interested in coffee it’s the way to go, but I was plenty impressed with the free tour. I honestly thought we’d just be standing in an orchard looking at some trees and it goes so far beyond that. 

The other thing I would recommend is a visit to the Kona Coffee Living History Farm operated by the Kona Historical Society.

They’re only open on Tuesday and Friday from 10AM – 2PM. It’s $20/adult and $10/student (6 and under are free) and reservations aren’t required but I would suggest going early because they have pretty limited parking. 

The farm is set up exactly like a coffee farm would have been in Kona in the early 20th century with costumed interpreters to watch and interact with (think Williamsburg but coffee). 

If you decide to visit, use this address: 82-6199 Mamalahoa Hwy, Captain Cook, HI 96704

If you put in “Kona Historical Society” in your GPS/Google Map it will probably take you to a different location where the historical society bakes and sells bread from a Portuguese stone oven on Thursdays. Coincidentally, this is how I ended up doing the Greenwell Farm tour ; ) 

But the Kona Historical Society runs several interesting programs that are worth taking a look at here. 

 

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