Sunday, November 29, 2009

Mmmmmm.....coffee

Thursday the 19th was our last day in Hawaii. Sadness! But the day was not a complete bummer because we saved something really cool to do for our last hurrah: the coffee farm tour. Woohoo! Being coffee freaks this was definitely a highlight for us.


Our resort was right in Kona, and Kona is to coffee what Napa Valley is to wine. There was something like 600 coffee farms on this main drag right near our hotel, and most of them welcome you right in to taste their goods. It's awesome-- you just walk in and the coffee is right there waiting for you. Just grab a cup and help yourself. And they often ply you with treats like freshed baked Oatmeal Cherry Coffee Cookies and Chocolate Covered Coffee Beans-- bonus! We really only had time to go to three farms, but we easily could have kept going (file that under Reason Number 8392355632115 why we'll be returning to Hawaii!).

The first stop was Hula Daddy (gotta love that name) where we spent the highest sum we've ever paid for a single pound of coffee (60 bones!!). But that particular award-winning coffee was a gift for a highly deserving couple who happen to be even bigger coffee freaks than we are, so it was money well spent.

Next stop was Kona Blue Sky Coffee. This place was phenomenal and now that we are back home in New York I know that we will be placing mail orders for more coffee frequently. Amazing coffee aside, this was our favorite stop on the tour for purely educational reasons. We learned a lot from our sweet Nebraskan tour guide--I can't remember her name, but she was the cutest thing ever. She met her boyfriend at school in her home state and followed him home to his home state. Very sweet. But I digress.

So here's a little pop quiz for you based on the cool things we learned on our tour of Kona BLue Sky:

Which tastes stronger: medium roast or dark roast?
The dark roast.
Duh! That was a gimme. Try this one:

Which has more caffeine: medium roast or dark roast?
The medium roast!
Shocker, right?

We also learned that peaberry is not a type of coffee unto itself. Apparently, peaberries are mutants (and I mean that in a good way!)that occur in about 5% of the cherries on a coffee tree. The cherries contain the coffee beans, which 95% look like what you think of when you envision a coffee bean-- you know, the thing that looks like it's sort of split down the middle in two neat halves? Well sometimes the cherry produces a bean that looks like it's missing its other half. The peaberry is that small, flat half-size bean. Why is this important? Well, it's not important really. But it does taste good! Coffee made from just the peaberries has a distinctive, robust flavor that is very nice. Try it! You like. I promise.

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