Ka'u: Best coffee region in the USA

Bull Kailiawa, who won top in Hawai`i and U.S.A. and is
one of the top ten in the world at SCAA this year,
checks his coffee. Photo by Geneveve Fyvie

If you've had the opportunity to taste award-winning Ka'u Coffee, you'll most likely agree with the decision of this year's Specialty Coffee Association of America Cupping Competition judges to rank a coffee grown in Cloud's Rest as not only number one of Hawai'i but the whole U.S.A. Bull Kailiawa, a native Hawaiian coffee grower, showed the world just how special Ka'u is when his hand-picked coffee from his farm just above Pahala was placed as one of the top ten coffee's in the world!

Bull Kailiawa  Photo by Teresa Tico

Hawai`i was honored at the annual SCAA convention in Houston last weekend as one of the top ten coffee growing places in the world. Ka`u was rated the top region in Hawai`i, and Bull was the top scoring coffee farmer. This is the fifth straight year that Ka`u coffee has ranked in the top dozen.

Last year’s winner was Willie Tabios, of Na`alehu.
  

Top Hawai`i winner at the SCAA Bull Kailiawa works with a volunteer volleyball
 team on new coffee fields along Hwy 11 at Pahala.  Photo by Julia Neal

Bull Kailiawa’s typica coffee ranked in the top ten worldwide alongside two coffees from Colombia, two from Honduras, two from El Salvador, two from Guatemala and one from Bolivia.

Bull noted that all three of the Ka`u Coffee SCAA winners in the last five years are former plantation workers who were leased land by the sugar plantation when it shut down in 1996. He said the three have been like brothers, working in the fields and as truck and crane operators in the sugar industry, then helping each other out on their coffee farms. Bull has scored in the top ten internationally twice, Willie Tabios twice, and Manuel Marques once in five straight years of Ka`u Coffee making a name for Hawai`i at the annual Coffee of the Year event. Bull and other Ka'u coffee farmers like Lorie Obra found themselves in Texas last week, serving up Ka`u Coffee at a pavilion showing off the winners at the Houston Convention Center.

Pete Licata, of Honolulu Coffee Co.,
used Lorie Obra's Rusty's Hawaiian
100% Ka`u Coffee in the barista
competition at SCAA.

Also from Ka'u, Rusty's Hawaiian 100% Ka`u Coffee was a key element in the creation of the 2011 United States Barista Championship entry of Pete Licata, of Honolulu Coffee Company. Pete is a frequent visitor to the home of Lorie Obra and her farm above Pahala. 

Lorie Obra's contingent at the SCAA
convention in Houston sported Team
Hawai`i T-shirts.

During his presentation, he provided visual images of her Cloud Rest farm on a small countertop screen for the judges, and said he picked and dried the coffee and followed it through all its process. He made three progressive drinks from the coffee, including a tea from the coffee cherry and the final espresso.

Pete Licata holds his award for U.S. Barista Champion that he
won using Rusty's Hawaiian 100% Ka`u Coffee.

Using Rusty's Hawaiian 100% Ka`u Coffee, Pete won the U.S. Barista Championship in Houston on Sunday. He will attend the Ka`u Coffee Festival on May 14 and head for Bogota, Colombia, with Rusty's in June for the World Barista Championship. Obra and her daughter, son and son-in-law were on hand at the U.S. competition in Houston this weekend wearing Team Hawai`i T-shirts.

Bull Kailiawa holds his award for
Best of Origin USA/Hawai`i.
Photos by Julia Neal

Bull Kailiawa received his award as one of the top ten coffees in the world and first in Hawai`i and the U.S.A. on Sunday from the SCAA and the Roasters Guild.

If you haven't tasted Ka'u Coffee yet, you haven't had the best. Join Bull, Lorie, Pete and the rest of us at this year's Ka'u Coffee Festival on Saturday and Sunday, May 14-15, at the Ka'u Community Center in Pahala, Hawai'i!