Reasons To Choose Aloha Star 100% Kona Coffee
Our Brand
We are a small family-owned and operated farm, dedicated to carefully growing, harvesting, processing, and roasting specialty-grade 100% Kona coffee, since 2013. Our award-winning 100% Kona beans are proudly grown and processed exclusively on our farm, located in Honomalino Acres, South Kona, on the Big Island of Hawai'i. We are committed to the authenticity, highest quality standards, and freshness of our products, to ensure the satisfaction of our customers, by providing a Kona coffee that is:
Authentic, 100% Estate grown Kona Coffee. All of our beans come exclusively from our farm; never mixed with crops from other farms, or lower quality beans, or with beans imported from other countries. Learn more.
Award winning: Since 2018, our first time participating in a coffee cupping competition, our farm has consecutively scored within the Top Ten winning coffees Kona Coffee District, and within the State of Hawaii Top Ten coffees. Learn more.
Family Owned and Operated. We carefully manage all phases of the production process: We grow, pick, process, mill (hulling), roast, pack and ship our coffee, to ensure the authenticity, highest quality, and freshness of our products.
Specialty-grade. Additional to the Hawaii Department of Agriculture (HDOA) Grading Standards for Kona coffee, our green beans are sorted and graded following the international standards stablished to differentiate specialty-grade coffee from commodity-grade coffee. As part of quality assurance processes, we employ:
Hermetically sealed bags to store our beans, to avoid damage due to moisture.
Small-batch milling, on demand, to preserve the freshness and quality of our green beans.
Optical sorting, to remove additional imperfections and defects, required to meet the standards established for specialty-grade coffee.
Cupping scoring (sensorial analysis) of each of our roasted batches, following the SCA (Specialty Coffee Association of America) standards.
Sustainably and ethically grown, although we are not certified organic yet, we employ organic techniques and sustainable, eco-friendly farming practices, including water saving processing, resources recycling, and waste management. Learn more.
Hand-picked, to ensure that we only pick the red ripened cherries. We process the fruit on the same day of picking. Before pulping, our coffee cherries are “floated” and sorted, to remove defective beans and unwanted debris.
Sun-dried, to keep the optimal moisture levels, preserving the aromas and sweet flavors that develop naturally from the coffee bean itself.
Artisan-roasted, we usually roast once or twice a week, depending on the order volume, to ensure freshness. We employ an artisan roaster (manually operated) which allows us to manage small, customized batches.
Shipped directly, from our farm to your door.
Our Goal
We strive to bring you the most delicious, authentic, specialty-grade 100% Kona coffee the Big Island of Hawaii has to offer. As part of the Kona coffee farmers community, we want to contribute in every possible way, to maintain and preserve the name and prestige of the real, authentic 100% Kona coffee.
The biggest challenges that we currently face are:
Origin of the beans. There is plenty of coffee in the market being sold as Kona coffee that is not 100% Kona coffee. Some of the coffee marketed as Kona coffee is actually a 10% blend and some have no Kona coffee beans at all.
A general misconception is that all Kona coffee is the same quality, which is far from true. There are different quality levels of Kona Coffee, determined by several key factors that make a huge difference in the flavor notes of a brewed cup of coffee:
The quality assurance practices implemented within the production cycle: Farming practices, harvesting procedures, processing methods, storage conditions, batch size, etc.
The compliance with coffee grading standards: removal of defects after milling (and before roasting).
We believe that providing authentic, quality 100% Kona coffee is very important in maintaining the integrity and standards of true Kona coffee. Consumers deserve to receive the authentic Kona coffee from farms who put a lot of effort and work to grow it.
Nowadays, the competition is global, with a wide range of options for specialty coffee consumers. When someone tastes inauthentic or lower quality “Kona” coffee (without being aware of it), and they compare its flavor with coffees from other regions/countries, they may believe that Kona coffee is not worth the price. These deceiving practices are harming significantly the name of Kona coffee.
When you purchase our products, you can be sure that you are getting authentic, Estate grown, specialty-grade 100% Kona coffee. To learn more, and avoid buying inauthentic or lower quality Kona coffee, we invite you to take a look at some of our tips for purchasing 100% Kona coffee.
We are proud members of the Kona Coffee Farmers Association (KCFA), the Hawaii Coffee Association (HCA), and the Specialty Coffee Association—US Chapter.
Our Processing Methods
Wet/Washed Process (Parchment - dried)
The Classic Kona Coffee Processing Method
The Wet/Washed (parchment dried) process, consists of completely removing the cherry and the mucilage from the outside of the parchment layer, with the objective of leaving only the flavor the is developed “per se” by the coffee beans.
Honey Process (Pulp - dried)
Our Best-Selling Processing Method
With the Honey process, after the beans are pulped, instead of placing them in a fermentation tank, as is done with the “Washed” method, to remove any mucilage (fruit pulp) that is still stuck to the parchment layer around the beans, we set the beans to dry without fermenting in water and without posterior washing, leaving the natural sugars of contained in the mucilage attached to parchment layer
Dry/Natural (Fruit-dried)
Intense Fruity Flavor Taste Method
With the Natural process, the coffee beans are set to dry without pulping (removal of the red skin). After picking, the coffee cherries are dumped in a water tank just to remove the "floaters" (immature/over ripened/leaves/branches, etc.) and then are set to dry on elevated beds (drying racks). It takes about three weeks for the beans to dry, depending on the weather. Then the outer skin and parchment layers are removed before roasting.
Our Quality-Oriented and Sustainable Production Cycle
As an Estate farm, we carefully manage all stages of the production cycle to ensure that we comply with the highest quality standards for specialty-grade coffee, while employing sustainable and eco-friendly farming practices. From seedling, growing, harvesting, processing, drying, milling, grading/sorting, roasting, to packing and shipping; providing you a complete “farm to cup” experience.
