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Why Those Coffee
Labels Matter
The Better the Bean, the
Better the Brew
by Sarah Blanchard
“We grow the most wonderful coffee in the world.”
Tom Greenwell, co-owner (with his wife Jennifer) of
Greenwell Farms in Kona, isn’t just boasting about his
own coffee. It’s Big Island coffee, and specifically
Kona coffee, that he’s talking about so enthusiastically.
“Customers who really love coffee also care about quality.
The Hawaii coffee certification program helps us all
keep our quality standards high.” The question of quality,
Greenwell emphasizes, isn’t just about the fabulous
aromas and the superb flavors and the deep, rich color
of a robust brew—it begins way before that, with the
tending and harvesting of the beans.
A Little Coffee Country
History
The coffee industry in Hawaii has had many ups and
downs since the day the first coffee trees arrived on
the Big Island in the early 1800s. The plants grew well
in Hilo and even better in Kona, especially on the slopes
near Kealakekua. The industry boomed during the latter
part of that century, then went bust in 1899 as world
markets collapsed. Many coffee farms were converted
to sugar plantations during the following decades; then
coffee made a comeback, often on smaller family estates.
In the 1950s, there was another decline in the coffee
market; but, after the Hawaii sugar industry died in
the late 20th century, coffee trees were re-planted
on land that had been previously dedicated to sugarcane.
Grown on upslope lands such as those owned by Greenwell
Farms, which was established in 1850, Kona coffee began
to gain serious name recognition. To customers, “Kona”
meant high-quality, flavorful roasts that carried the
added cachet of an exotic, tropical island paradise.
Recognizing quality when they tasted it, customers were
happy to pay more for anything labeled “Kona.”
But then, in the mid-1990s, customers’ trust in the
Kona coffee name plummeted. Over a span of several years,
California coffee broker Michael Norton bought large
quantities of Central American coffee, re-packed it
with a smaller amount of Kona, labeled it as “pure Kona
coffee,” and sold it on the market at the much-higher
Kona prices. Evidence gathered by the U.S. Customs Service
revealed that Norton had raked in nearly $15 million
in profits through this scheme. (To read the full details
of this story, and view the Justice Department’s original
affidavit, see http://www.
coffeetimes.com/konakaiaffidavit.pdf)
Defective beans are tested
for in each lot of Hawaiian coffee inspected. Green
coffee in Hawaii is inspected for size, density,
moisture content, aroma and bean defect count.
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Norton went to jail, but the damage to the Kona coffee
industry lingered long after the fraud was exposed.
Shawn Slocum, Processed Foods and Dealer Licensing Specialist
with Hawaii’s Department of Agriculture (DOA), says,
“A lot of roasters and re-sellers got burned. U.S. Customs
caught the perpetrator, but the Kona name was nearly
ruined.” Farmers of 100% Kona coffee were harmed the
most by Norton’s scam.
Gaining Back the Trust
So how could Kona coffee growers re-establish their
credibility? They couldn’t look to the federal government,
because there were no federal government standards for
green coffee, and no way of tracking whether Hawaii
coffee was grown in Kona or Ka’u or Hamakua or any other
district. Coffee is the second most frequently traded
commodity on the world market (right after oil), but
it’s grown in only one state in the U.S. – Hawaii. That
meant that Hawaii would have to create its own industry
standards to ensure quality and truth in labeling.
It’s an important industry. Total coffee production
in Hawaii during the 2005-2006 season topped 8.2 million
pounds, with 5.8 million pounds (more than 70%) of that
grown on the Big Island. Coffee growing is solidly centered
in Kona, where about 4,000 acres are in production on
some 750 coffee farms. Ka’u coffee growers are farming
about 400 acres, and Puna and Hamakua districts add
another 150-200 acres each. Kauai has about 3,000 acres,
while Maui, Molokai and Oahu together add another 1,200
acres.
Since Kona is the heart of coffee country on the Big
Island, it’s logical for Kona coffee growers to lead
the push for industry standards and certification.
Slocum, who serves as the federal Department of Agriculture
Processed Foods Supervisor for Hawaii, has been instrumental
in helping Hawaii’s coffee growers create and implement
the regulations for grading coffee.
“If the buyers can’t trust the sellers, there’s no
market. So,” explains Slocum, “the Hawaii coffee industry,
the USDA and the state Agriculture office worked together
to create inspection and certification standards. Now
all the brokers who buy green coffee from Hawaii know
exactly what they’re getting. And consumers benefit
because the coffee is being produced to consistently
high standards.”
Tom Greenwell of Greenwell
Farms smells freshly milled green Kona coffee as
it passes over a gravity table.
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A brief explanation of coffee production is in order:
When coffee ripens on the tree, the red or red-purple
fruits are called “cherries.” The cherries are picked
and then processed to remove the husk and pulp, leaving
the inner bean which is coated with a layer of skin
called parchment. This parchment must also be removed;
the resulting bean is the “green” coffee, which is then
ready for roasting. Brokers buy the green coffee, then
sell it to roasters for the final stage in processing.
In Hawaii, coffee beans are inspected at the green stage,
after the parchment has been removed and before the
beans are roasted.
Deciphering the Certification
Code
Hawaii’s coffee certification program, drafted in 2000
and implemented in 2001, establishes inspection standards
and provides certification for all green coffee sold
in wholesale quantities. Cherry and parchment coffee
may be also inspected on a voluntary basis, at the request
of a grower or broker, but the large majority of all
inspection and certification takes place at the green-coffee
stage, just before it’s ready for roasting. (The Hawaii
Administrative Rules that establish grades for cherry,
parchment and green coffee are available at http://
www.hawaiiag.org/hdoa/adminrules/ar-143.pdf)
The certification for green coffee is based on quality
(grade), origin, or both grade and origin. This is the
grading system that’s most important to coffee consumers,
because that’s where coffee is classified by the designations
that appear on the labels: extra fancy, fancy, No.1,
select, and prime.
Coffee grading is an art as well as a science, and
it takes several weeks of intensive training for the
graders to make the grade. Graders need to be thoroughly
familiar with the characteristics of several different
types and varieties of coffee, and they also need to
know how to measure the beans for moisture content,
size, color, aroma, and specific defects.
Grading Standards for
Hawaii Coffee
First, all green coffee sold in wholesale quantities
must be inspected for grade. Based on the criteria mentioned
above, Hawaii coffee is labeled as Extra Fancy (the
very best!), Fancy, No. 1, Select, Prime, No. 3, and
Offgrade (the least desirable). Peaberry beans (smaller
beans produced from single rather than double fruits)
are also graded according to these standards. Peaberry
commands a premium price because of its intense flavor
and rarity, as it generally represents no more than
3-7% of a grower’s crop. (See http://www.hawaiiag.org/hdoa/pdf/qad-greencoffeestd.pdf
for a summary of green-coffee grade standards.)
Next, coffee grown in four specified districts can
be labeled by grade AND by district. So coffee grown
in Kona, Kauai, Molokai, and Maui can earn the right
to be stamped as “Kona Extra Fancy,” or “Maui Select.”
However, No. 3 and Offgrade coffees don’t qualify to
be labeled by district. No. 3 coffee grown in Hawaii
can be labeled only as “Hawaii No. 3,” and Offgrade
coffee can’t even be identified as “Hawaii coffee” –
it must be labeled only as generic “Offgrade Coffee.”
Coffee may also be identified by origin alone. Any
coffee grown in Kona, Maui, Kauai, Molokai, Ka’u or
Hamakua that also meets the minimum standards for Hawaii
Prime coffee can be identified simply by its region—for
example, Ka’u Coffee, or Hamakua Coffee. To qualify
for these labels, a sample from each lot of green coffee
must be inspected for grade, and the grower’s records
are examined to check the tax map key so the district
of origin can be recorded.
The state Department of Agriculture and Hawaii Coffee
Association have also created federally registered trademarks
that growers may use to identify the origin of green
coffee. (Use of these registered trademarks is optional.
For more information, see http://www.hawaiiag.org/hdoa/pdf/qad-coffeebrochure.pdf)
Sound complicated? Perhaps, but the two methods of
certification—grading for quality and recording of origin—go
a long way toward creating a trustworthy industry standard
that brokers and consumers can rely on. In the last
season, Hawaii Department of Agriculture coffee graders
gave full certification (grade and origin) to nearly
5,382,000 pounds of green coffee, and assigned origin-only
certificates to another 557,000 pounds.
As for grade, the Hawaii DOA reports that nearly half
of all the coffee certi- fied on Hawaii and Maui during
the 2006 season was graded as Extra Fancy or Fancy.
Only about 3% of the coffee submitted for certification
was labeled as No. 3 or Offgrade.
Quality Verification
at the Mills
Hawaii’s coffee mills also participate in a self-regulation
program, the Coffee Quality Verification Program (CQVP).
This helps to ensure that the quality standards are
followed by everyone.
Many small coffee growers don’t roast their own coffees;
instead, they take the green coffee to a commercial
roasting mill, where it’s roasted according to the specifications
of the grower. When green coffee arrives at a CQVP mill,
the miller inspects the coffee and issues the certifi-
cates. of quality. The Hawaii DOA audits the inspection
records of the CQVP mills, and can be called in to inspect
any lots of coffee that may not meet the standards for
grade.
Sherwood Conant from
the Hawaii Department of Agriculture (Kauai office)
inspects green coffee. |
The regulatory agencies and the industry are working
together to maintain quality, Greenwell notes. “We have
to regulate our own business to keep standards high.
I try to educate our growers, too.”
Most of the Hawaii coffees sold in mass-market outlets
such as drugstore chains and off-price outlets aren’t
certi- fied, Greenwell says. “Those coffees are often
bought from many small growers and then bulk-roasted.
The quality is mixed at best. Customers need to start
asking for that certification, they need to look for
the labeling that says ‘fancy’ or ‘prime,’ so they know
what they’re paying for.”
Is All Hawaii Coffee
Certified?
No. The regulations allow growers to sell small quantities
of green coffee without going through the inspection
process. And if growers have their coffee roasted in
the geographic region where the coffee was grown, they
don’t have to have it certified. Many small growers
sell their roasted “estate coffees” direct to consumers,
in gourmet shops or at roadside stands, so they don’t
need to have it certified. And the cost of inspecting
every lot of green coffee (approximately $100 per lot,
no matter the size of the lot) would be prohibitive
for the smaller farms.
Jimmy and Lisa Dacalio own Cloud Rest Coffee in Pahala
in the Ka’u district, a 7-acre farm that’s planning
to expand to 10 acres. “Our coffee is unique in flavor,
we produce in small batches, people love it. But we’re
small-estate growers— we can’t afford to certify every
batch of coffee we grow,” Lisa explains. “We take it
in 44-pound batches to a roasting house in Holualoa,
they grade it for us there, and then roast it according
to our directions.” The Dacalios sell their coffee on
their website and at their roadside stand.
Shawn Slocum explains, “There’s a demand from some
growers to have 100% of all coffee graded and certified,
but many people feel this would be an undue hardship
on the smaller growers. If you have a three-acre coffee
farm and you only sell roasted coffee at a roadside
stand, the cost of having the inspection done would
probably put you out of business.”
Greenwell Farms is one of the biggest producers on
the island, but Tom Greenwell also understands the position
of the smaller coffee farmers. “At our farm, we sell
600,000 to 700,000 pounds of green coffee each year.
Probably 85-90% of our business is in wholesale, and
we certify everything we sell, by both grade and origin.
The lots we produce are so large that paying $100 to
test each lot adds perhaps four or five cents a pound
to the price. Growers who produce very small lots can’t
afford to have each lot tested.
“But the system works well at both levels,” Greenwell
adds, “because it keeps the competition fair, especially
among the larger producers of green coffee. It’s raised
the whole quality level of Kona coffee. So the smaller
estate growers benefit, too.”
Raising the Bar
Sample roasted coffee
beans at the Hawaii Department of Agriculture’s
coffee laboratory. |
Hawaii’s present coffee certification program has gone
a long way toward standardizing the quality of coffee,
but some industry spokesmen are recommending changes.
“We’d like to raise the standards on a couple of the
grades. And it might be easier on the growers if we
had fewer grades,” Greenwell suggests, “but the buyers
want more choices so they have more room for price negot
iat ions. The present program seems to work well, and
our buyers like it.”
“There should be an expiration date on the certificates,”
says Les Drent, owner of Blair Estate coffee farm on
Kauai (and editor of Coffee Times). “At the mill, I’ve
received green coffee that passed certification six
months earlier, but didn’t meet the standards when it
arrived at my farm. This bad coffee was the result of
poor storage, or environmental damage. Old certifications
on bad coffee only tarnish the quality and reputation
of what should have been excellent coffee. And our industry
is built on a reputation for quality.”
Richard Dinker from the
Hawaii Department of Agriculture (Captain Cook office)
cups freshly brewed Kona coffee. |
Drent adds, “I’ve never been a fan of big government,
but I’ve come to see how necessary these standards are.
As a certified organic farm, processor, and roaster,
as well as a certified Fair Trade coffee roaster, I
drag my feet through the application and inspection
process, but I’ve come to accept the fact that it’s
necessary to deter the unscrupulous people from taking
advantage of the Hawaii coffee industry.”
Drent wants to see standards in place for roasted coffee
as well as green coffee. He says, “It’s hard to understand
why no federal labeling requirements exist on roasted
coffee in an industry that highly scrutinizes the grading
of its green coffee. In my mind, it is a failure by
all in the industry, and government that better labeling
requirements were not created and enforced with roasted
coffee, right at the beginning of the specialty coffee
boom.”
As Drent recalls, “Kona farmers attempted to federally
trademark the name Kona back in the mid 1990s but had
to abandon their effort because of costly legal depositions
initiated by five companies who opposed the trademark,
and practice Kona coffee blending. One of them was Kona
Kai Farms—Michael Norton’s company. Sadly, that trademark
registration never made it to court and, to add insult
to injury, neither the state nor the federal government
helped the farmers in their push to preserve the Kona
identity.”
A major concern for Drent, and others in the industry,
is the issue of labeling “Kona blend” coffee. “Why do
we work so hard to grade green coffee so strictly, if
it can then be roasted and legally blended at 10% in
Hawaii, and 0% outside of Hawaii, and still be called
Kona blend coffee? Shouldn’t we be interested in protecting
the consumer who ultimately buys all roasted coffee
bearing the name Kona, as well as those who buy 100%
Kona green coffee? To see how completely out of control
this mislabeling is, just try a search for Kona blend
coffee on Google.”
The State of Hawaii requires the label on a package
of Kona blend coffee to disclose that it contains at
least 10% Kona coffee. Drent says, “I have yet to see
a restaurant or hotel menu, or interisland airline coffee
service, state that their Kona blend coffee contains
only 10% Kona coffee. It’s a deception that the blenders
say they’re not responsible for enforcing, and a deception
that our government allows to occur.”
Drent warns consumers not to be fooled. “The purpose
of this Kona blend labeling is deception and deception
alone, so it is still ‘buyer beware’ when buying Kona
coffee.”
Drent concludes by saying, “Unfortunately, these blenders
are a necessary evil in an industry that still sells
over 50% of its 100% Kona coffee to blenders. If you
shut them down, you run the risk of shutting down over
half of the farms in Kona.”
Should the Kona blend market be eliminated? The problem,
says Drent, “is a double-edged sword. Some say that
eliminating the Kona blend market will open new doors
for 100% Kona coffee sales. Will it be enough, though,
to sustain the market? And if it does not open new doors,
are we willing to live with the consequences? This goes
to the heart of the debate today.”
So Why Should Coffee
Drinkers Care About the Standards?
It’s simple. When you’re buying Kona Extra Fancy (or
Maui, or Kauai), you’re paying a premium for what many
connoisseurs say is the best coffee in the world. Sure,
it’s the roasted brew you’re going to enjoy, but if
the quality isn’t there at the green-coffee level, the
best roasting in the world isn’t going to make it better.
Coffee growers emphasize the importance of quality
at all levels. Drent says, “As a grower, miller, and
roaster of organic Hawaiian coffee, I’ve come to realize
how important every step of the process is. There are
small nuances in every aspect of the process that can
alter the unique taste. Where and how the coffee is
grown, how it’s harvested, milled, aged, and roasted
are all very important steps in the process. But green
coffee which doesn’t meet the particular standards of
moisture content, defects, color, etc. can only detract
from that unique taste. Everyone needs to meet these
standards if they’re looking to produce a quality cup
of coffee.”
Tom Greenwell notes that the Hawaii coffee industry
is really coming into its own. “This is gourmet coffee.
This is specialty food. The wine industry has helped
us tremendously with marketing and promotion. Sophisticated
consumers want the best of everything, and they know
quality when they taste it.
“If you’re going to serve a $60 bottle of wine with
dinner,” Greenwell adds, “you’ll want to serve a $30-per-pound
coffee with dessert. Coffee should be paired with foods,
the way wine is. For breakfast, for example, you might
want a full city roast. Luncheon or a midafternoon meal
would call for a medium roast; and your after-dinner
coffee should perhaps be a dark roast or espresso.”
What do coffee customers really want? The coffee growers
in Hawaii know: Unique, delicious, absolutely superb
coffee, top-quality brews. And, thanks to Hawaii’s coffee
industry standards, customers who buy truly graded 100%
Hawaiian coffee can enjoy it all, confi- dent that they’re
getting the very best Hawaii can offer.
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Story
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