Hawaiian Kona Mountain Thunder Coffee

The famous name ‘Kona’ has long been associated with coffee. The name Kona was even given to a method for brewing coffee that was popular in the 1950s to 1980s. Coffee was originally planted in Hawaii in 1828 by Samuel Reverend Ruggles from cuttings he had brought from Brazil. Following this in the 1880s an English merchant named Henry Nicolas Greenwell established Kona coffee as a recognised brand.

There are approximately 800 coffee farms within the Kona growing area with an average size of less than 5 acres. The total Kona coffee production are covers 9 square km and produces just under 1,000 tonnes of coffee per year. However Kona has its share of problems currently languishing under leaf-rust and with bad storms having damaged the entire crop 3 or 4 times over the past 20 years. The principal buyers of Kona tends to be the Japanese, who are known for their willingness to pay extremely high prices for their extremely high quality coffee. Kona certainly fits both bills‰!

I first critically tasted Hawaiian Kona coffees in 2000 when we were asked to source this coffee for one of our high-end retail customers and I received several samples from producers on the Island. At that 1st tasting I was impressed by the general quality and flavour of the coffees from this unique growing area. Mountain Thunder was one of the coffees in the line-up and whilst standards were high this coffee had the edge over other estates. Konas are noted for their nutty, chocolate flavour and I have to say that I developed a love for Kona from that day onwards. It is not a coffee we sell in enormous volume due to its price but we have many regular drinkers who enjoy the quality and are prepared to pay extra for that.