The summer of 2005 brought a bountiful harvest
of lychee. |
After four years of farming coffee, I have
realized one thing holds true about cultivating this magical shrub.
I should have planted more lychee!
That would have been the easiest route, if
not for my abiding passion for the enchanting quality of the coffee
bean. At least I now have a much deeper appreciation for what
goes into producing my morning cup of coffee.
Since 1993 I have been pulling the threads
off sacks of green Kona coffee. At the time, I had little knowledge
about the process that brought the coffee to the sack. After stumbling
through numerous farming experiments that were well thought out,
well intentioned, and well researched, I have found myself caught
in a circle game with Mother Nature. At times when I was sure
that I had the answer for streamlining my coffee farming operations,
I would only come to realize I was no closer to that ultimate
cup than when I first began.
When I arrived in Kauai in 1998 I picked coffee
from the wild and cupped the finest coffee I have ever tasted.
I have come close to duplicating that same tantalizing taste,
but the toll it has taken on my nerves to successfully cultivate
this coffee for a financial profit has been discouraging. Now
approaching year number five, I have to look beyond the monetary
rewards I thought we would be reaping and look closer at the values
the farm brings that cannot be measured in dollars. This year,
on the other hand, we did make five thousand dollars in one week
selling lychee off the back of the truck!
Roadside sales were not only fun but very profitable
for Gigi and Jessica as Les stayed in the trees. |
Quiet mornings, chickens, the sheep grazing
in the orchard, and key lime pie made from our own fruit are but
a few of the rewards that cannot be measured in money. Homemade
pesto made from the basil in the front yard and an endless supply
of sunrise papayas might begin to make me forget about the unyielding
scorch of the summer sun or the pounding rain and unrelenting
winter winds that attack our coffee grove.
My intentions have now shifted one hundred
and eighty degrees. As an organic farmer I have begun to realize
that I wasn’t fully embracing Mother Nature and working with her.
Instead, I was choosing to fight her with added fertilizer, water,
and other symptomatic treatments. Part of this realization came
from looking closer at the natural conditions around the coffee
trees that introduced me to that perfect cup 7 years ago. They
were overgrown and completely wild, flourishing within a jungle
of diverse plant life. Out of the simplicity of nature came these
near-perfect and very healthy coffee trees.
Once I realized this, we started to transform
our own coffee orchard into a canopied jungle of gliricidia (mother
of cacao), which is a popular nitrogen fixing over story tree
used throughout South America to shade coffee and chocolate trees.
While we have no definite idea what adding three hundred shade
trees to our farm will mean as far as added maintenance, it will
begin to re-create the natural habitat of coffee on a piece of
land that was mostly an open and abandoned field when we arrived
in 2001.
After this experience, I now tend to take a
closer look at what makes coffee trees thrive in their natural
environment. I have also realized what makes Kona, Hawaii such
a perfect place for growing gourmet coffee. Constant shade (volcanic
haze known as vog) sits over coffee country, nestled in the rainforest
between the 800-2500 foot elevations. A southwesterly exposure
at the foot of Mauna Loa (13,679 feet) and Hualalai (8,271 feet)
mountains keeps the fabled coffee country protected from the howling
winds of winter. Deep, rich, and porous soil with good rainfall
are the ingredients that round off such an ideal combination of
growing conditions.
While Blair Estate coffee farm in Kauai may
not enjoy the same benefi- cial natural surroundings as Kona coffee,
something extra shines through in the coffee that is produced.
There is a sweetness of taste that one can only attribute to the
will to survive in Kauai’s landscape. When I consider the island’s
history with hurricanes, along with geography such as the deep
cut valleys, towering swordlike cliffs, abundance of riverways,
dense jungle foliage and countless waterfalls, I begin to believe
it is the grand adventure of living in this incredible environment
that produces such a great cup of coffee.
While we wait another couple of years for the
gliricidia and Mother Nature to fully interact with our coffee
farm, we will continue to enjoy what she does bring us for harvest
in both coffee, fruit, or peaceful days on the farm; and we will
continue to strive for that same elusive perfect cup that originally
lured us here.
