Grove Koger

Several times a year, Maggie and I order coffee beans from the Hawaiian island of Kaua`i. We do so not just as a reminder of our visit to the island in 2009, but for the opportunity to taste and enjoy a few of the island’s outstanding coffees, which vary in flavor from subtly citrusy to malty and a bit chocolately.

We order from the Kauai Coffee Company, an operation that, along with coffee itself, has quite a story behind it. (Note that the company dispenses with the ʻokina, which is a glottal stop in the “correct” name of the island that you’ll be happier not worrying about.)

The cultivation of coffee in Hawaii dates back to the early 1800s, when Don Francisco de Paula y Martin, a Spanish physician and adviser to King Kamehameha I, brought some plants to the island of Oahu in 1813. In the early years, however, sugar was Kaua`i‘s dominant crop. And there, actually, lie the roots of Kauai Coffee. The company began in 1899 as the McBryde Sugar Company, which came into existence with the merger of several sugarcane plantations, including the Koloa Agricultural Company. The new company was named for Judge Duncan McBryde, whose estate was also part of the merger. Subsequently, the company became a part of the Alexander & Baldwin company, and it was during this period that the company planted its first coffee bushes on the slopes of Mount Waialeale.

Today, Kauai Coffee owns a plantation of 4,000 acres, a size that Kenneth Davids calls “astonishing” in the 5th edition his 2001 book Coffee: A Guide to Buying, Brewing, and Enjoying (St. Martin’s Griffin). Given that size, the company is the largest coffee grower in the United States, and has received certification from the Rainforest Alliance. Over the years, including 2025, Kauai Coffee Company has also been recognized ten times (!) as the Best Coffee Grower in the All Islands category of Hawaii Magazine’s Readers’ Choice Awards.

And tomorrow morning, Maggie and I will drink to that success!

☼ ☼ ☼

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