Episode 38: What Makes Kona Coffee Unique?
Discover how the Kona coffee terroir shapes flavor and aroma. Greenwell Farms CEO Tom Greenwell explains the impact of elevation, rainfall, cloud cover, temperature, and farming practices on Kona coffee’s distinctive taste, bean density, acidity, and quality.
[00:00:05] Matt Carter: Hey, good morning, everybody. I’m Matt at Greenwell Farms, here with our CEO, Tom Greenwell. Morning, Tom.
[00:00:09] Tom Greenwell: Morning.
[00:00:10] Matt Carter: How’s everything going? Is the recovery progressing?
[00:00:12] Tom Greenwell: Yep. Yep. Yeah. Doing good. Slow but sure.
[00:00:15] Matt Carter: Yeah, slow but sure. That’s the way here. So Tom, it’s a short one today, but we had a question and, you know, we refer to our Kona coffee belt as a terroir, as a unique environment that produces unique flavors and aromas. And someone was wondering, how important is that terroir to the taste and smell of Kona coffee? And as a farmer, what things can you do to either enhance or work with or accentuate the natural environment that our coffee grows in? It’s a lot to cover, but.
[00:00:49] Tom Greenwell: Yeah. I mean, as Kona in general has a very kinda unique climate compared to the rest of the islands.
[00:00:58] Matt Carter: Right.
[00:00:58] Tom Greenwell: And, you know, to a lot of most of the growing regions around the world. So the varietal that we use, it’s adapted very well here. But it, you know, there… We basically have… You know, I look at it as six smaller, unique terroirs.
[00:01:20] Matt Carter: I see.
[00:01:20] Tom Greenwell: And but a lot of times there’s gonna be a-
[00:01:23] Matt Carter: Even within the Kona coffee belt.
[00:01:25] Tom Greenwell: Oh, yeah. Even within the Kona.
[00:01:27] Matt Carter: Gotcha.
[00:01:27] Tom Greenwell: And you know, you, it’s, all about rainfall.
[00:01:34] Matt Carter: Mm-hmm.
[00:01:35] Tom Greenwell: Cloud cover.
[00:01:36] Matt Carter: Mm-hmm.
[00:01:39] Tom Greenwell: Temperature ranges.
[00:01:40] Matt Carter: Right.
[00:01:40] Tom Greenwell: You know?
[00:01:41] Matt Carter: Which is about 30 degrees, winter, summer, day, night. Somewhere in that range.
[00:01:44] Tom Greenwell: Yeah, I mean, from our lowest elevation terroirs to our upper elevation, you know, we can have 30, 40 degrees difference.
[00:01:53] Matt Carter: Right.
[00:01:55] Tom Greenwell: And then within ’em, their own change in temperature. Like at, our, the Greenwell Farms, Mauka Estate. We get about 30 degrees difference between day and night.
[00:02:12] Matt Carter: I see.
[00:02:12] Tom Greenwell: And down here we get about 15.
[00:02:14] Matt Carter: I see.
[00:02:15] Tom Greenwell: So, and that changes the growth rate of the plant and the cherries ripening and, yeah, I mean, we have a lot of different terroirs here in Kauai.
[00:02:26] Matt Carter: And then you’re, you’re fertilizing the trees, both, you know, kind of proactively and reactively.
[00:02:31] Tom Greenwell: Yeah.
[00:02:31] Matt Carter: Does that change the taste of the coffee at all?
[00:02:34] Tom Greenwell: Yeah, it does. You know, where we have heavier rainfall we have to, you know, the fertilize… We’re not gonna tell our secrets, but.
[00:02:43] Matt Carter: Okay.
[00:02:43] Tom Greenwell: We fertilize differently than we do in the little drier areas.
[00:02:47] Matt Carter: Okay, gotcha.
[00:02:48] Tom Greenwell: That have, you know, less, more time between rains and cloud cover really changes that, keeps the ground more moist.
[00:02:58] Matt Carter: Mm-hmm.
[00:02:58] Tom Greenwell: We have a lot of cloud cover up in our upper elevations.
[00:03:01] Matt Carter: Mm-hmm.
[00:03:01] Tom Greenwell: Compared to our lower elevations where we get more sun.
[00:03:04] Matt Carter: Right.
[00:03:05] Tom Greenwell: So the rain is, you know, really more important, right? But we change fertilizing, you know, the NPK changes, the micronutrients, how the plant uses it because of the s- the sun exposure.
[00:03:20] Matt Carter: Right. Now, I heard once that we run about 910 trees per acre on our modern method. Is that about right?
[00:03:29] Tom Greenwell: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:03:30] Matt Carter: And does tree spacing or pruning models affect the way the coffee comes in?
[00:03:36] Tom Greenwell: Oh, absolutely.
[00:03:37] Matt Carter: Really?
[00:03:37] Tom Greenwell: Yeah. ‘Cause again, that’s all due to temperature and sun exposure on your coffee. Your lower elevations grow faster, so they’ll produce a lot more, so you need to feed ’em more. Your higher elevation, it’s a lot slower. Everything, the metabolism’s really slow up there, so it, it can take up to two months longer to ripen the cherries.
[00:04:04] Matt Carter: I see.
[00:04:06] Tom Greenwell: Your fertilizing applications are, you know, really you cut them and you’re more constantly fertilizing. Instead of down here where the fertilizer doesn’t move through the ground as fast, so we can do a, you know, a little heavier fertilizing and.
[00:04:26] Matt Carter: I see. And this is something that’s on a schedule or your farm manager’s just observing like, “We need to start doing this or that”?
[00:04:34] Tom Greenwell: Uh, no. Yeah, we do it by, rainfall.
[00:04:38] Matt Carter: By rainfall too.
[00:04:39] Tom Greenwell: Yeah.
[00:04:39] Matt Carter: Okay. So mostly you’re actually looking at the actual environment and reacting to it.
[00:04:44] Tom Greenwell: Oh, yeah. Absolutely.
[00:04:45] Matt Carter: That’s interesting. Many coffee aficionados prize high elevation coffee for that longer ripening cycle, and what does that r- longer ripening cycle give to the fruit that you may not get at lower elevations?
[00:05:02] Tom Greenwell: Yeah, so that ripe- that longer ripening normally creates a little higher acidity in the cup. Usually a denser bean.
[00:05:14] Matt Carter: Mm-hmm.
[00:05:15] Tom Greenwell: And of course, because it’s taking longer to ripen, you’d normally get bigger beans.
[00:05:20] Matt Carter: I see.
[00:05:21] Tom Greenwell: And.
[00:05:21] Matt Carter: I see.
[00:05:21] Tom Greenwell: You know, a lot of the, your denser, bigger beans are more prized.
[00:05:26] Matt Carter: I see. Interesting. So is there anything else you could offer to help someone understand that, you know, obviously it’s not only the terroir, it’s the tree variety and the fermentation method. There’s a lot of variables. But just talking about the environment with- within which it grows, and you might say things like, you know, Jamaican Blue Mountains and, you know, Panamanian Volcan Baru and Kilimanjaro, and is there any kind of one or two things that really shine in Kona’s coffee based on where it grows?
[00:06:00] Tom Greenwell: Well, the variety plays a big part.
[00:06:02] Matt Carter: Mm-hmm.
[00:06:02] Tom Greenwell: You know, the, what grows great down here at this elevation, not necessarily performs as well above, you know, at the upper, higher elevations. Yeah, I mean, our, our typica seem to do good in all three.
[00:06:19] Matt Carter: I see.
[00:06:19] Tom Greenwell: But the varietals like a Pacamara or Geisha, it, they do much better at higher elevations.
[00:06:30] Matt Carter: I see. I see.
[00:06:31] Tom Greenwell: And the Pacamara does really… You know, again, it’s not, it doesn’t like the middle. What we’re finding is it likes the lower elevation, and it likes the higher elevation, but not the middle.
[00:06:41] Matt Carter: And this is all done by trial and error, like test planting?
[00:06:44] Tom Greenwell: Yeah.
[00:06:44] Matt Carter: And just seeing how the trees do?
[00:06:45] Tom Greenwell: Yeah.
[00:06:46] Matt Carter: Wow.
[00:06:46] Tom Greenwell: Takes about five to six years to figure out.
[00:06:49] Matt Carter: Interesting.
[00:06:49] Tom Greenwell: You know, ’cause the plant has to mature before you get the full flavor from it.
[00:06:54] Matt Carter: Right.
[00:06:56] Tom Greenwell: So yeah, this is what’s kind of exciting about our, the Greenwell Farms Mauka Estate is we’re hitting that period of really, really coming up with some excellent coffees up there.
[00:07:09] Matt Carter: Right. They’re finally maturing. They’re finally settling in.
[00:07:12] Tom Greenwell: It took a while.
[00:07:13] Matt Carter: Yeah. Sure. Sure.
[00:07:14] Tom Greenwell: About 10 years up there, where it takes about five years at this elevation.
[00:07:18] Matt Carter: Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay, well, I hope that answers the question that was asked, and you understand that the environment within which something grows has a large part in affecting the way it tastes and smells. And, thank you for your insight on that, too.
[00:07:32] Tom Greenwell: Yeah.
[00:07:32] Matt Carter: You guys have a great day.
[00:07:33] Tom Greenwell: My pleasure.
[00:07:34] Matt Carter: Aloha.
[00:07:34] Tom Greenwell: Aloha.
