Doing the java jive in Kona ...
One fast desktop computer with all-in-one printer: $1,750. One ream of paper for the printer: $2.85. One cup of freshly brewed Kona coffee next to the keyboard: priceless.
This is my writing world. Throw in some good music coming from the computer speakers and I’m ready to write. At this moment I’m listening to “Java Jive,” first from the Ink Spots, and then the Manhattan Transfer version. “I like coffee, I like tea, I like the java jive and it likes me.” The tempo slow and easy, telling you to take your time, enjoy the journey, don’t get too buzzed.
A couple of years ago I went to the source, to the cool green slopes of Kona on the Big Island. For a coffee lover it was a true pilgrimage, a chance to visit a coffee farm, to see the trees as well as the whole processing and roasting operation. No 10% blend here. Nothing but pure Kona beans, grown on an organic family farm, the Kona Le’a Plantation and Holualoa Kona Coffee Company.
In addition to its own beans, Kona Le’a processes and roasts beans from a hundred other coffee farms, but it’s not a large commercial complex. The small scale creates a big part of the charm. You need a good map and directions to find the small road sign at the entrance (slow down, take it easy).
Turn up the driveway as if you’re visiting the family, follow the smaller sign to the visitor parking area, which is close to the coffee trees and paved with macadamia shells, and then you’re there, in the heart of the Kona coffee belt, in the heart of an organic family farm. A large nene honks along between your car and the modest roasting house and you remember reading about all the geese that live in the orchard and provide natural fertilizer.
At the Kona Le’a Plantation, the friendly lady comes out from the gift shop and gives you a large information card for your self-guided tour. You can see everything in ten minutes, or an hour. Best to take your time, however. Slow down, wander about, trace the steps in a bean’s journey from tree to roaster. Take photos. It’s a tranquil place, just a few natural sounds and the quiet talk of the visitors. I was there with two old friends from Tucson. A couple from San Francisco arrived right after us, with a small boy and grandmother in tow. So seven of us, nobody in a hurry.
It was a slow time at the farm, between picking seasons, and there were just two batches of beans being roasted and packaged. I tested the limits of my digital camera card, snapping everything from the green coffee beans on the trees (not cherry red yet) to the fat mongoose that posed between two rows in the orchard.
There’s a Turkish proverb, “Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and as sweet as love.” Well, that’s the Turks. Kona coffee, like the Hawaiian climate and most of the best features of the islands, has a softer, more restrained character. The trades that cool us during the best days may blow strong, but they are always sweet. The aloha spirit, strong as the sun that warms our bodies, is all about a softer approach to life. Kona coffee is not Turkish, it’s much more subtle, even when it’s roasted dark and brewed strong. Add half and half to the cup, if you wish, but it’s fine without it.
Pour a cup, begin to write, and you honor the past. Listen to Ernest Hemingway:
It was a pleasant cafe, warm and clean and friendly, and I hung up my old water-proof on the coat rack to dry and put my worn and weathered felt hat on the rack above the bench and ordered a cafe au lait. The waiter brought it and I took out a notebook from the pocket of the coat and a pencil and started to write.
Back in Honolulu now, I have a pound of dark roast organic beans shipped from the Kona Le’a Plantation, the beans beautiful in their gold foil package, waiting to be ground and brewed slowly each morning, a few cups at a time. We’re a long way here from the world of comic Steven Wright. It was Wright who said, “I put instant coffee in a microwave and almost went back in time.” I take small sips, savoring each one, letting the buzz sneak up on me while the sounds of “Java Jive” set the pace for my writing, and my day. I like the java jive. And it likes me.
Tags: Kona coffee, Writing
