Kona coffee lovers have the fertile volcanic soil and optimal weather conditions on Hawaii’s Big Island to thank for the rich, smooth quality of their favorite brew, but the most recent volcanic eruption didn’t do them any favors.
Some experts believe the eruption of Kilauea, which ended last September, diminished the yield of the Kona coffee crop by spewing volcanic particles into the air and blocking the sunlight. The “vog” — volcanic fog — choked the leeward side of the island, where the prized Kona coffee is grown by scores of independent farmers.
“Last year’s crop was very low — probably 30 percent to 40 percent off our normal baseline average,” says Suzanne Shriner, president of the Kona Coffee Farmers Association and operator of Lions Gate Farms in Captain Cook, Hawaii. “We attribute that to the volcano and the vog, which blocked a significant amount of sun in Kona and Ka’u [another coffee-growing region south of Kona], and in some cases may have burned flowers off the trees so the coffee didn’t set up during the harvest season.”
The shortfall left many customers — which include specialty retailers and cafe operators — low on Kona coffee inventory, she says. This year, the harvest is already showing signs of a strong comeback, which Shriner attributes to the abundance of both sun and rain.
“The harvest has just started, and some of our fields have already provided more coffee than they did last year,” she says.
Coffee is a cyclical crop, meaning that trees tend to alternate between higher and lower yields each year, but last year marked the fourth year in row in which farmers reported disappointing harvests, according to Shriner.
Farmers typically harvest coffee cherries — ripe coffee beans ready to be dried and roasted — several times each year from September through December, and this year Shriner says she expects some of those harvests will be “considerably bigger than last year.”
That will translate into more availability for customers, she says, although the abundance of supply is not expected to impact pricing. That’s because, unlike coffee from places such as Brazil and Colombia, which behave like commodities and react to the laws of supply and demand, the Kona coffee output is much smaller and remains in a constant state of strong demand. It retains its gourmet pricing in the top tier of premium coffees worldwide, regularly fetching more than $30 per pound at retail.
“Even though we will have more yield this year, we still see prices that are at a really good level for the growers,” says Shriner. “That’s good news for growers — prices are high and there’s a lot of beans.”
Progress against CBB
In addition to the promise of higher yields driven by the sun and rain, Kona coffee farmers are also optimistic about their progress against damage from the coffee berry borer, or CBB, a tiny beetle that ravages coffee crops around the world by devouring coffee beans from the inside out.
“It seems like we are all starting to get the beetle under control,” says Shaheen Hobbeheydar, who operates Angie’s Acres in Holualoa, Hawaii, with his wife. “We’re all getting more of our coffee.”
The company markets 100 percent Kona coffee through its website and to specialty retail/cafe customers in Asia and the U.S.
Shriner says the KCFA has been working with the University of Hawaii on programs to manage the problem.
“We are seeing less CBB damage across the industry,” she says.
Hobbeheydar says it’s too soon yet to determine how this year’s harvest at Angie’s Acres will compare overall to last year, but he says the abundance of rain may be impacting his coffee trees in other ways.
“We used to have a dry season right before the harvest season, and that would make the cherries turn red all at the same time, so the pickers could pick the whole branch at once,” he says.
This year, Hobbeheydar says he’s seeing trees with flowers, unripe beans and ripe cherries all on the same branch, making it harder for pickers to harvest.
According to an article in West Hawaii Today, which reported last week on the high expectations for this year’s Kona coffee crop, growers are also facing challenges finding enough labor to pick the coffee again this year, a problem that is exacerbated by the early ripening some farmers are seeing.
Related: Coffee Prices Lowest Since 2016; Hawaii's Coffee Industry Faces Higher Prices, Lower Yields.
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