Seeing, sipping and savoring Kona coffee

By Terry Richard
Newhouse News Service

Coffee isn't just for sipping on Hawaii's Kona coast.
Home to 700 coffee plantations, most of them family farms, the lava-strewn slopes of the Big Island's southwest shoulder produce prized coffee beans.

While a piping-hot brew is the usual way to enjoy Kona coffee, the coffee bean is also blended into coffee jelly, ice cream, tanning butter and liqueur. Coffee is added to skin-care products for exfoliation and aromatherapy spa treatments. Coffee-scented candles are popular, as are clocks and other desk accessories made from wood of the coffee tree.

The importance of coffee to the Big Island is celebrated each fall during the annual Kona Coffee Cultural Festival, with parades, coffee tasting, a picking contest and an art festival.

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