Grand Opening & Recipe Contest

Kathleen Kam moves her final mural before it's installed in the Visitor Center.
Photo by Julia Neal

Ka'u Coffee Mill Visitor Center celebrated its Grand Opening on May 6 and is now open to the public from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily, Monday through Friday. Visitors are invited to tour the mill and surrounding farms, view the beautiful original artwork and murals by Kathleen Kam, taste Ka'u Coffee, learn more about how coffee makes it from the field to your cup and purchase merchandise supporting the Ka'u Coffee Mill. 

Ka'u Coffee Brigadeiros, 1st place Amateur Candy,
by Gwen Edwards of Kailua-Kona.
Photo by Rachael Sauerman

Carl Okuyama judged entries.
Photo by Rachael Sauerman

Being active supporters of the Ka'u Coffee Festival, the mill celebrated its opening with a Triple C Recipe Contest for the community. The contest, an official event of the 2012 Ka'u Coffee Festival, called community members to create cookies, crackers and candies using Ka'u Coffee. 

Contest judge Brad Hirata (left) and
Olson Trust Land Manager John Cross (right)
award Ka'u Coffee grower Trinidad Marques
first place in the Professional Cookie Category
for her Ka'u Kope Mocha Cookies.
Photo by Julia Neal

Gwen Edwards won first,
Amateur Candy category,
for her
Ka'u Coffee Brigadeiros.
Photo by Rachael Sauerman

Participants received an 8 ounce bag of medium roasted coffee from the mill upon turning in their application forms.To balance the competition, professional, amateur and student entries were judged separately. Each first place winner in each category (i.e. professional cookie) took home $150, while second place winners took home $100, and third place winners took home $50. Local chef Brad Hirata of Ka'u Hospital; foodie Carl Okuyama, owner of Wiki-Wiki Mart and Island Market in Na'alehu, and Ka'u Coffee Mill founder Edmund C. Olson served as judges. 

Edmund Olson awards the Grand Prize to Chealsea Lynn Kauionalani Rosario for her Biscotti.
Photo by Julia Neal

Edmund C. Olson and his Land Manager John Cross announced the winners and handed out awards at the event. The overall top scorer, Chelsea Lynn Kauionalani Rosario of Ocean View, HI, received the Grand Prize of $500 for her Amateur Cracker entry titled Biscotti. The recipe incorporated five Ka'u grown ingredients, for which it was awarded bonus points.

As of yet, the mill is trying to create a Ka'u Coffee Mill signature product from the top winners, which will be sold at the Ka'u Coffee Mill Visitor Center once the final product is ready.

Triple C Recipe Contest Winners:

Amateur Division, Candy Category
1st place - Gwen Edwards with "Ka'u Coffee Brigadeiros"

2nd place - Cathy Behrens with "Ka'u Coffee Ball Cookies"

3rd place - Raylyne Welker with "Coffee Caramel Candy"


Amateur Division, Cookie Category
1st place - Lisa Dacalio with "Ka'u John Bull Cookies"

2nd place - Shawn Marques with "Keoua's Ka'u Coffee Coco/Mac Attack Cookies"

3rd place - Mary Coulman with "Ka'u Expresso Oatmeal Fruit Cookie"

Amateur Division, Cracker Category
1st place - Chelsea Lynn Kauionalani Rosario with "Biscotti"

2nd place - Tammie Nelson Ewers with "Ka'u Biscotti"

3rd place - Raylyne K. Welker with "Ka'u Coffee Crackers"

Professional Division, Cookie Category
1st place - Trinidad Marques with "Ka'u Kope Mocha Cookies"

2nd place - Carol Barr with "Welfare Bits"


Student Division, Candy Category
1st place - Malie Ibarra with "Ka'u Coffee Toffee"

2012 SCAA Exposition in Portland, OR

Join Ka'u Coffee grower Bull Kailiawa, who placed top in the U.S. last year, and the Ka'u Coffee Mill team at the international Specialty Coffee Association of America Exposition in Portland, Oregon, on Friday, April 20, through Sunday, April 22. Our booth is number 9097.

Bull Kailiawa, winner of the top coffee in U.S. at 2011 SCAA, with Pete Licata, who employed Rusty's Hawaiian Coffee, also grown in Ka'u, to win the U.S. Barista Championship. Photo by Julia Neal 

Ka'u Coffee farmers have placed in the top ten at SCAA during the last five years, with Ka'u establishing itself as a growing region of excellence.

Over the past 29 years, the SCAA has built a reputation as the industry's standard setter. The expo will have everything from growers, roasters, retailers and food and beverage service professionals to coffee enthusiasts of all professional backgrounds. Attendees also have the opportunity to learn more about the art of roasting, brewing and cupping.

We invite you to meet us at the Portland Convention Center at booth # 9097. For more on the SCAA Expo, see: http://www.scaaevent.org/

Ka'u Coffee Mill Blessed

Father Joel blessed Ka`u Coffee Mill, with owner Edmund C. Olson following. Photos by Geneveve Fyvie

 

   The blessing of the Ka‘ū Coffee Mill brought some 300 people to Keaiwa along Wood Valley Road above Pāhala in January to celebrate the new mill, agricultural park and hydroelectric project. John Cross, who manages both the Edmund C. Olson Trust lands and the Ka‘ū Coffee Mill, said the visitor center and mill were built for all the Ka‘ū Coffee farmers. Not only the Ka‘ū Coffee Mill coffee will be sold at the visitor center, but boutique and award-winning coffee from individual farmers will be sold there, with the first brands displayed being those of Bull and Jamie Kailiawa, Leo Norberte and the Ka‘ū Coffee Growers Cooperative.

Visitor center at Ka`u Coffee Mill
will be open within a month.

      Cross pointed to the Ka‘ū Coffee Mill staff, mill supervisor Lee Segawa, administrative assistant Brenda Iokepa-Moses, coffee consultant Richard Loero, contractor Bob Taylor and others who helped put the operation together. Demetrius Oliveira gave the opening prayer. Father Joel sprinkled holy water around the facility. The band Keaiwa and Keoki Kahumoku provided music. Miss Ka‘ū Coffee Brandy Shibuya performed hula.

Bull and Jamie Kailiawa serve free homemade food at the blessing. 

      Attendees enjoyed Hawaiian food by the Kailiawa family and fresh vegetables all grown on Olson Trust and Hester lands in Ka‘ū.
“Not too often do you find me speechless, but this finds me close to that,” said state Rep. Bob Herkes during the ceremonies. He praised the Olson Trust for building the mill for local coffee farmers to process their beans and save the time and cost of driving them to Kona and Hilo mills. Herkes descends from a great-grandfather who came to Hawai‘i from Scotland in 1898 and built the first water pipe in Ka‘ū. “Not a flume, a water pipe, and it was made of wood,” he said. Herkes applauded Edmund C. Olson for “taking abandoned sugar cane lands and putting the people back on the ground, working in agriculture.”

Rep. Bob Herkes at the recent blessing
of Ka`u Coffee Mill.

      Sen. Gil Kahele told the people attending the event that he promotes Ka‘ū Coffee every chance he can, serving it at his office in the state Legislature and displaying a Ka‘ū Coffee Mill bag on the wall for everyone to see when they enter his office. He said he has followed the plight of displaced sugar workers from the closing of the sugar company to their journey starting their small coffee farms.
He said Ka‘ū is a special place to him, that his uncle was a fisherman and his grandmother was from Hīlea and Honu‘apo and that he spent summers in Ka‘ū as a child and became good friends with Thomas Kailiawa. He said he is so proud to see the success of Kailiawa’s son Bull and noted that Ka‘ū has the top-rated coffee in the United States. Kahele described Olson as a “good guy” for investing capital in the economic development of Ka‘ū.

County Council member Brittany Smart and state Senator
Gil Kahele promote Ka`u Coffee.

Keiki visit with donkeys packing Ka`u Coffee.

      County Council member Brittany Smart praised Ed Olson and the coffee farmers for all their hard work the last 15 years since the sugar plantation shut down.

Kathleen Kam autographed cards bearing her artwork.

Visitor center at Ka`u Coffee Mill
will be open within a month.

      Ka‘ū Coffee Mill is also a place of art, and Kathleen Kam was noted for her original murals of the land, the wildlife and the people of Ka‘ū. Two murals are completed in the visitor center, and another one is in progress. Four paintings of native birds are on display. A giclee print of Ka‘ū Coffee with nēnē, the Hawaiian state bird, was presented to Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park Superintendent Cindy Orlando to be placed in the regional headquarters of the National Park Service in San Francisco. Graphic artist Tanya Ibarra was recognized for developing the Ka‘ū Coffee Mill logo. The Pāhala Plantation House crew, under the direction of artist Kathleen Kam, created a sculpture of locally grown vegetables for display. Local woodworker Michael Worthington created koa cabinetry for the visitor center, and the crew from sister company Hāmākua Macadamia Nuts designed the retail space. Until the grand opening later this year, the visitor center will remained closed to the public but all Ka'u Coffee Mill coffee and products can still be purchased online at www.kaucoffeemill.com.

Ed Olson presented a giclee print of
Nene & Ka`u Coffee to Cindy Orlando.