A Successful 4th Annual Ho'olaule'a

Local band Hands of Time wrapped up the Ka'u Coffee Festival as
coffee farmers packed up to go home.
Photos by Julia Neal

Ka'u Coffee farmers reached a new high on May 12, 2012 as they celebrated the demand for Ka'u Coffee that is growing to nearly outstrip supply. The farmers sold almost all the coffee on hand at the fourth annual Ka'u Coffee Festival over two weekends, attended by more than 1,000 local residents, visitors and coffee enthusiasts. Many took tours of Ka'u Coffee farms and Ka'u Coffee Mill. Visitors also enjoyed the Ka'u Coffee Experience, where baristas, including national champion Pete Licata, used their skills to make the best Ka'u Coffee possible.

Willie Tabios, 2012 U.S. winner at SCAA, enjoys the Ka'u Coffee
Experience with U.S. barista champion Pete Licata serving.

      Willie Tabios, who took first place for the United States in the 2012 international Specialty Coffee Association of America’s Coffees of the Year competition, said his success is for all the coffee farmers. Tabios is known for sharing his planting, harvesting and processing practices with all the farmers, which has helped lead to a regional excellence. Coffee farmers working on farms within a mile of each other have been winning top ten in the world at the SCAA competition, year after year.

Miss Ka'u Peaberry 2010
Karlee Fukunaga-Camba
and Jennifer Abalos.

Pahala members of Halau Hula
O Leionalani
Photos by Julia Neal

      The day featured an unusual and culturally rich free concert by such legendary musicians as Cyril Pahinui, Moses and Keoki Kahumoku, Bruddah Waltah, hula dancer Sammi Fo and kumu hula Debbie Ryder. Demetrius Oliveira brought his band Keaiwa to the stage along with many more musicians. Miss Peaberry Court, under the direction of Ka'u Coffee Growers Cooperative president Gloria Camba, performed the Bamboo & Water Dances. Music lasted all day and even accompanied the farmers as they packed up and went home. Emcee Skylark's steady voice stayed until the end sharing  all her local knowledge and aloha.

Debbie Ryder, of Lana'i, has expanded
her halau to Pahala and is leading a
cultural exchange between the two
remote communities.

      Debbie Ryder, of Halau Hula O Leionalani, said organizers of the Ka'u Coffee Festival have helped create a new attachment between the remote communities of Lana'i and Ka'u. In 2009, Bull Kailiawa, himself an award-winning Ka'u Coffee grower, joined Dane Galiza in traveling to Lana'i to help with Ho'okupu Hula No Lana'i Cultural Festival and to look at coffee-growing possibilities on the small island. They invited Ryder and her halau to the Ka'u Coffee Festival in 2011. They traveled to Ka`u and ever since, travel between Pahala and Lana'i has increased. Local dancers performing at the Ka'u Coffee Festival already plan fundraisers to go to the next Lana'i Festival. Ryder said she will teach in Pahala more often, as her halau has expanded to include native Hawaiian dancers from such local families as Kailiawa, Kaleohano, Ka'apana-Wroblewsky, Kailiawa-George, Keohuloa-Initan and Ho'opi'i-Kailiawa.

 Sueki and Satsuki Funai  (center) have grown organic coffee in Ka'u
for generations and were honored with a Ka'u Coffee Festival Lifetime Visionary
Award trophy, surrounded by award-winning Ka'u Coffee farmers
Lorie Obra, Willie Tabios, Bull Kailiawa and Francis and Trini Marques.
Photo by Ralph Gasto

    The first Ka'u Coffee Festival Lifetime Visionary Award was presented to Sueki and Satsuki Funai, of Pahala, who have grown organic coffee in Ka'u for generations. Sueki has taken care of shade-grown coffee at the Moa'ula coffee plantation well into his 90s. The farm was started generations before the rise of the new Ka'u Coffee industry. The Funais are famous for having sold most of their coffee to a church in Japan.