Kona Coffee Trying to Appeal to Japan

By KARIN STANTON For The Associated Press
© 2007 The Associated Press

KAILUA-KONA, Hawaii — Hawaii's Kona coffee industry is looking to attract more Japanese consumers by offering special tours.

Mountain Thunder Coffee Plantation is one of the farms taking the initiative by introducing a Japanese-language Web site, hiring a Japanese-speaking concierge and offering special tours targeted at Japanese visitors, co-owner Trent Bateman said.

"They like to have expanded knowledge of how we get the quality and how we actually do the labor," he said. "It just so happens that Japanese people pioneered this industry. Now they might have faded a little bit and the newcomers outnumber them, but the allure of Hawaii and of Kona coffee has not gone away."

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