Coffee makes farming possible: special edition Hawai'i

Shay

Foulk: Hey podcast, thanks for joining us on today's special edition podcast, Coffee Makes Farming Possible, from Hawaii. I had an awesome time touring Kona Joe's Coffee and learning so much about what goes into coffee production and how universal the love and passion for agriculture truly is. So whether you have to listen to this one in chunks, you're on a long drive, I really encourage you to listen to the whole thing. Definitely the most incredible experience that I've had on this trip and one of the most memorable things in my life. Give it a listen. I hope you enjoy and look forward to hearing back from you. Welcome back everyone to the Ag View Pitch. I'm Shay Foulk and joining me today at Kona Joe's Coffee on the Big Island of Hawaii is special guest Nikki and Rod. And first of all, I just want to say thank you for joining me today.

I really appreciate you both taking the time to do this. So I was wondering if, uh, maybe one at a time you could kind of tell the listeners a little bit about what you do here and, uh, your background and how long you have both been working with the company.

Nikki: Okay, so I am originally from Brazil, so I studied agriculture engineering in Brazil, focused in coffee production, and I basically came here because I was working with The Ohio State University in Ohio, Columbus. So we used to recruit interns from all over the world to come and work here in US for internship for 12 months, 18 months. And one of the places that we used to place interns was Kona Joe. So that's how I got in touch with the owners and I met the owners. So I was there until 2017 when I was moving back to Brazil. We kind of had a conversation and then they needed somebody to manage the farm for them, and here I am since February last year.

And so I basically manage the farm and get all the pruning done, all the fertilization program done, the processing of the coffee, dealing with the pickers or the farm contractors that we have, getting the coffee up here to the dry mill and minding the coffee on the size grader, density grader, and helping like with like pretty much everything that we need to do because like everybody does everything like I was mentioning.

Shay

Foulk: So yeah, in agriculture you have to have a little bit of flexibility, huh?

Nikki: Of course, 100%.

Shay

Foulk: It's good to be involved in a little bit of everything, just be dangerous enough to know a little bit of the jobs. Yeah, so that's great. And you did— you were coffee production for a little bit in Brazil?

Nikki: Yes, but not in a full-grown, like, coffee trees or crops. My uncle grows coffee seedlings. Okay. So I worked for a while with him. And so university and my uncle growing seedlings.

Shay

Foulk: Great, and we'll come back to that in a little bit, looking at, you know, that side and how it ties into your production here today. So how about you, Nikki?

Rod: So I've actually been in coffee for 17 years now. Um, and how I got into coffee is actually started managing a different coffee company in a different district here on the Big Island from seed to cup. So I've been a part of germination, propagation, planting, picking, processing. Uh, one of the main things that I am proud of is actually becoming a roastmaster in that aspect of it. Uh, I've been with the company now for 2 years. Um, this is my second go-round with them. I actually worked with them about 7 years ago, uh, and then I left due to some health issues. And when I got into contact with them again, they were like, we need a GM. And so I said, okay, here I come. And I've been here ever since.

My job here is to double-check quality control controls, making sure that what Rod is doing is proper, which he does an awesome job, as well as collaborating with him on when he's fertilizing, when he's pruning, whenever we're bringing in the pickers, as well as maintaining obviously our dry mill and into our roastery, and as well as tours, retail, barista, a little bit of everything. Right. And I think what helps me a lot is having that background in the agriculture and the hands-on experience because I'm able to, if he has questions, I'm able to get him in touch with the right people or I may have the answers. And so we work very well. He's like my right-hand man out here.

Shay

Foulk: Great. I think we picked the right pair then here to talk to today. And we'll talk a little bit later about, you know, how that fertility does tie into to the roasting and the final product and the taste there. So I was wondering if you guys could just give us a little bit of a background on, you know, Kona Joe's, kind of the who, what, when, where, why that Kona Joe's is. Rod's saying Nikki's gonna take the lead on this, so just a brief background.

Rod: Okay, so there's actually a love story behind this. Okay. So Deepa, which which is Dr. Joel's wife, used to be a greeter on one of the cruise ships out here. So Dr. Joel is an orthopedic surgeon. He got offered a position on top of the same cruise ship. When he entered onto the cruise ship, he actually met Deepa, fell in love with her. Their first date was actually here in Kona, and because she was from the islands, their dates were among all the different kona coffees here along the region. When he ended up— by the end of the day, he ended up not only falling in love with his wife but as well as kona coffee. So it became a dream of his, and that was 27 years ago.

Shay

Foulk: Wow.

Rod: Um, from that point, what had happened was he comes from the vineyards, and so he knew a lot about grapes and growing them on trellises and how it boosts the sugar content and makes the cherries— I mean, the grapes bigger. Well, he decided what's gonna happen if we decide to stretch the trees along the trellises. And what we found is it actually produces 40% more cherries on our trees. It actually boosts a higher amount of sugar content into the fruit. The more sugary you get in a coffee cherry, the less acidic your coffee becomes and a lot more sweet. Sweeter and a lot more smoother. So as soon as he found out what the results were, he actually patented the idea of trellising. So we are the only ones in the world right now that do this method.

Nikki: Wow.

Shay

Foulk: And this was 1995, am I remembering correctly?

Nikki: And that—

Rod: that's when we actually came out, yes.

Shay

Foulk: Okay. And so did this— the farm that we're at here sits on 18 acres, uh, in the Kona District. We're at about 1,400 feet above sea level. And did this farm actually exist prior to that, or was it all from scratch? Okay, interesting. And how did that come about as far as acquiring the land? And it was—

Rod: that I don't know the history of it, but I know it literally took them about 4 to 5 years. A lot has to do with they were looking at somewhat on a mountain top where there was a slope, right? Um, that way it would help us with the trellis system as well as the pollination of the flowers.

Nikki: Okay. And the sun exposure.

Rod: And the sun exposure as well. Great. So it took them a while to actually find this spot. I don't know exactly what made them decide on this spot, but I'm glad they did.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, absolutely. And so you mentioned, you know, the Kona region and Kona coffee, and I Most of the listeners here drink coffee daily and have heard of Kona coffee, but what makes Kona coffee special?

Rod: What makes Kona coffee special is, first of all, Kona coffee can only be grown in the District of Kona on the Hawaiʻi Island, also known as the Big Island. Within this district, there's only a 20-mile run that Kona coffee can be grown. On that 20 miles, obviously there's 325 different farms here. A lot of them are small mom-and-pops, maybe about 1 to 5 acres. But what makes Kona coffee, I think, one of the best in the world is not only the soils and the micronutrients that are in those soils, but as well as right being at this elevation, you get the morning sun exposure, the afternoon shade coverage, and in the evenings right along this district it'll rain. So your trees get everything it needs in a 24-hour period, um, which actually helps better your coffee. So the 5 micronutrients that are actually in the ground is magnesium, copper, sulfate, boron, and silica.

So we grow in what is called blue rock or straight lava rock, very hard rock, but as it breaks down as it breaks down below, it actually continues to fertilize our trees. And so that's what we have up against everything else in the world.

Shay

Foulk: Kind of a perfect growing environment there to bring it all together.

Nikki: Yeah, we don't need to fertilize as much too because everything is in there already. It's just a matter of like getting it on the right time and knowing like what like you're doing too.

Shay

Foulk: So you mentioned the micronutrients, and I think you can maybe both speak to this, this a little bit. What are you applying for your main macros, you know, NPK? Is there any addition for that? And also, what is the pH of your soils here? You know, how do the acidities level?

Rod: Acidity levels?

Nikki: That's like, I can't remember right now, like the pH, because it was like a long time that I did it. But normally we do nitrogen in the beginning of the year. And if we see like any yellowing on the trees, or like if they're lacking— like normally that's potassium— then we throw potassium. And then now, like this year, we just changed the fertilizer program too. Okay, so we're using like— we're using more copper levels and magnesium, if I'm not mistaken, like, uh, right after flowering and right after you see like the cherries like getting the berries turning to a cherry. Okay. Right, which happens like late June. Okay. Like early July. Yep. And for the flowering, like January, February, March, even in March.

Shay

Foulk: So is this a broadcast fertilizer application or is it run through the irrigation lines?

Nikki: No, like in the past they used to do it like through the irrigation lines because we have fert irrigation, but now it's just like a Broadcast. Yeah, we just like spread, like by— we calculate how much the tree would need, right, which is normally like 80 grams. Yep, like per tree. So we just hand do it.

Shay

Foulk: And we'll talk about this a little bit more when we get to the trellising, but you mentioned, you know, 30 to 40% better production through the trellis system. Is that at the same plant density, or are you actually changing plant densities per acre or per size area as a result of the higher production?

Nikki: It is the same. It's just like, it's difficult because our blocks are not, um, the same size of blocks, right? But they're pretty much— because it's a small area, so you don't see too much of a difference just because you have more trees or less trees, like less dense, or— right, because they're pretty much like divided or spaced. Spaced like the same.

Shay

Foulk: And what is that spacing between?

Nikki: 10 feet. 10 feet and— not 10 feet. 10 feet. 12. 12 feet by 7.

Shay

Foulk: 12 by 7.

Nikki: By 7. Okay. If I'm not mistaken. Right. Uh, and it's normally 37 rows and 43 trees. Okay. Each block.

Shay

Foulk: Interesting. That's per block?

Rod: Per block, yes.

Shay

Foulk: Very interesting. So with the region that we're into, obviously, uh, through our travels here, we've seen that there's a lot of other crops grown. What else is primarily grown in the Kona District?

Rod: And I know there's a lot of crops, but actually it's a lot of tropical fruit. Okay. Um, so on this region, you're going to see mango, you're going to see lychee, you're going to see bananas, you're going to you're gonna see avocados, papayas, anything that can handle, like I say, a really rocky terrain. Um, I know they are coming up with more mac nut farms here. Um, they're not too sure how they're gonna do because with mac nut you want a slightly lower elevation, but they're experimenting with it. So it keeps on expanding, but right now most of it is more tropical fruit-wise.

Shay

Foulk: Okay, and how has coffee changed over time as far as the percentage, or, you know, has it grown in this region, or is it staying pretty steady?

Rod: I think about 4 years ago, to me anyway, Kona coffee tapped out. What I mean by that is there's no more space. Okay. Like I say, there's a 20-mile— that, that's all you got. And I A lot of the old families that did coffee, they don't want to give up their coffee land. It becomes a legacy that carries on. So for expansion-wise, I think about 5 years ago we kind of hit our limit already. What you'll notice now though is the coffee is now expanding island-wide versus just Kona. Okay. So now you have, uh, ka'u ka coffee coming up that we call that Kona's little sister. Um, they grow a little slightly higher in elevation and the grounds are different, so the flavor of the coffee is different, right? Um, then you have Hilo actually doing coffee as well now. Um, actually Hilo was the first place that coffee has ever grown on the island, believe it or not. Really?

But these Typica Arabica trees don't do very well low elevation, a lot of rainfall, so they had to switch the type type of coffee they grew. Okay. Um, now that they've done that, they're producing award-winning coffee as well. And then you also have hamakua coming up. So it's— they're noticing, just like anything else, depending on the variety, you can move it around the island for it to grow. That's the one thing about this Big Island, can grow anything, just have to be in the right spot and know what you're doing.

Shay

Foulk: And it gives a unique product based off of those different regions.

Nikki: Yes.

Shay

Foulk: Your management and how that affects. So, and you mentioned earlier about 325 different farms kind of in this 20-mile area. Have you seen any consolidation? Or you said, you know, they want to maintain that as a legacy. So, I mean, has it been staying pretty steady in that aspect?

Rod: Uh, it's been staying pretty steady. I think 5 years ago, the last one that, well, they started doing it was Kona Hills. Um, you know, we've seen companies that completely have shut down, um, not to where they sold the company, but they just basically not doing it no more. Um, and this is something Rod can go into a little bit later, but it's because of a beetle that actually started attacking the farms that no one could really control, and it was damaging so much of their crop to where it was 60% damaged, and there's really no recovering from that. So the only way you can really come back from that is cut down your whole farm and redo it again. A lot of the people didn't want to go ahead and do that, so they basically just cut everything down and built a house.

Shay

Foulk: Like, right?

Nikki: Yeah.

Shay

Foulk: So, and that's a great segue. That was the next question I was going to ask, is moving into insect disease and fungal pressures of the region. So, Rod, if you want to, you know, talk a little bit about the insect pressure that Nikki's referring to and then move into some of the others.

Nikki: Sorry. And The main one is the CBB, which is the coffee border bug. Okay. And it has a tricky way on how you approach the problem because the bug goes dormant for a period of the year. So between like December, February, like you don't see it, but it's not— it doesn't mean that it's not there. It's there and it's just like sleeping. Right. So if you don't, like, when you see your berries, like, after, like, the flowering, if you see the berries coming, and that's the first time you want to hit with the, like, the insecticide. Okay. Because that's the perfect, like, timing for the, the bugs, because their bugs are coming back, right? So if they come back and you don't spray, then you have, like, a problem, like, in the end of the season, because you have to control the bug instead of just preventing it. Because the bug you're going to have eventually.

So every coffee farm that you go, like now, basically you're going to find CBB. And this is something like in Brazil, we have CBB for 15 years, 20 years. So there was like people were more like used on dealing with the bug. But since here in Hawaii started like 7 years ago, 5 years ago, 8 years ago. So it was kind of new stuff still. And the process, like Nicky, like, can, can say that too. The process on getting, like, the, the chemicals or the products that you could spray on the, on the island, because it's an island and you wanted to protect everything that's in here, so, right, you don't want to damage, like, any other crop or the environment by adding any other chemical. So we use Beauveria bassiana, okay, which is a fungus, right? It's the same fungus that basically grows on rice, right? So if you put rice on a Ziploc bag and let it sit there for 15 days, it grows.

And you can rinse alcohol— the rough idea— alcohol, brown sugar, mix it up, 45 days, and you have your, your insecticide.

Shay

Foulk: Really?

Nikki: Or your Fugus. Okay. There. So that's the rough idea, right? So we— that's the main thing that we have to deal with here we, like, you see some black moth. I don't know the name in English, sorry. No, that's okay. And the fungus, the black on the leaf, the blackish kind of—

Rod: oh, the black mold.

Nikki: Black mold, like you see the black mold. But if your trees are too dense, right, right. So if you have too many verticals on the trees, or if like they're so tight together, then you see that happening. And that brings brings, uh, other stuff too. Brings aphids and brings ants and brings the tick borer.

Rod: Oh, twig borer.

Nikki: Twig borer. Okay. Right, so is if you don't deal properly with one, it's gonna bring the other one. But our main one now is the CBB. Okay. And the other ones we kind of just go from seeing like in little spots, right?

Shay

Foulk: Yeah. And so with that industry response you mentioned that some farms either weren't prepared for it or couldn't deal with it? Was it a slow adaptation by the industry here? You know, you said Brazil has dealt with it for 15, 20 years now. Was it a slow adaptation or was it access? The cost. The cost.

Rod: So that, that particular fungus that we need to spray, it runs about $250 to $275 a gallon. And that gallon does what?

Nikki: I think it's a block, like an acre, an acre and a half.

Rod: So if you got 18 acres, you're looking at, you know, quite a bit of money. For, you know, what I really like about here and having me and Rod team up, we're able to get the owners to understand that we need to invest in order to protect the quality.

Nikki: Right.

Rod: And that's why you'll notice there's such a big jump from 7 years ago till now for really good high-quality Kona coffee. And that's because of all the added expense, right, that has to go into actually maintaining it.

Nikki: And not necessarily like just expense on purchases, like you are purchasing chemical, because like it's timing. If you do the pruning right, or if you focus like on getting the trees clean or your field clean, or stripping the trees, and then applying the, like, the insecticide on the right time, you're investing, like, in, in time, which is labor, labor intensive, and cost too, right? But not purchasing too much chemical too. So it's kind of a balance.

Shay

Foulk: And we refer to that as the 4

Rs: the right product, right place, right time, at the right rate. And I mean, that goes for your nutrients, your fungicides, your insecticides, everything to protect. And it's no different in this industry is what I hear you saying. Even more crucial probably here than with the corn and soy production. And, you know, so for a lot of the producers listening back home, they had issues with planting this year, late season, getting the crops into the ground. May, June, a lot of the corn and soybeans went in, and when it got to you know, end of July and into August with tasseling and pollinations, okay, do we spray fungicide to protect this crop? Well, it's a hard decision to make when you have to, you know, pay the bills and, you know, you're forking over that money. But what's out there to protect for your top-end yield?

And especially with coffee, I can see how that's, you know, really important for the region. So you hit on some, you know, fungus and insect disease, not much competition as far as other plants in your blocks or acreages. So we deal with a lot of weed pressure at home, but horsetail. Yes, horsetail.

Rod: Okay, number one. Yeah, horsetail and what is called— we call it here in Hawaii guinea grass. It's also known as, um, what do you guys call it?

Nikki: Yeah, in Brazil we call it colonhão.

Shay

Foulk: Okay.

Nikki: Yeah.

Rod: Right. Um, yeah, so basically it's just cane grass, right? Yeah. And what will happen is the root structure is so strong that if you let it get too high, you can't just go and mow it down, or you can't just like, um, just spray it and hopefully it dies. You literally have to go with a sickle and cut down that bunches and then dig out the roots so it doesn't come back, because if you we don't do that, it'll be back in 3 weeks.

Nikki: And like, especially here, like, it rains a lot, right? Like almost like every single day besides our dry season. Then it doesn't rain like for 2 weeks and then it rains again. But in the rainy season, it's just like rains every day, like for 3 or 4 hours. And the, the king grass, it just grows like 2 or 3 inches a day.

Shay

Foulk: Wow.

Nikki: So we kind of tried to balance like on using herbicide. Like, we try to keep on track, like, on 6 weeks herbicide, 6 weeks, and then we weed whack everything, 6 weeks herbicide. So we never use too much herbicide because it can damage the tree, the root structure of the trees too. But it just depends on the environment, on how the weather looks like.

Shay

Foulk: So have you seen any herbicide resistance resistance, uh, in the horsetail or in the, in the cane grass here? No.

Nikki: Okay, not yet. Herbicide resistance?

Rod: Uh, you have to know, um, what works best. Okay. There are— I mean, a lot of them will kill it. Some will actually take longer periods of time, um, versus there's certain things that can kill it in like 2 days.

Nikki: Okay.

Rod: Um, So it's just about knowing your products. We're actually looking into getting one that will kill the grass but will not damage the trees. So it's a new thing that's coming out that we're experimenting with, and I think that's going to help out a lot because just like spraying anything, you don't want it to touch your trees, right? You know, so we're trying to go back and forth with play with it and see what's going to work best.

Shay

Foulk: And what products are you currently spraying and what are you looking at, just out of curiosity?

Nikki: We're using like basically Roundup and Roundup Max and 2,4-D. Okay. Right, if we want like to get like really fast.

Shay

Foulk: Yes.

Nikki: Because 2,4-D just like kills everything like in 2-day range. Right. And that's it. The other one is— We always forget the name.

Shay

Foulk: That's all right.

Nikki: Yeah, we always discuss about like using it, but we always forget the name. But it basically, you can—

Rod: it starts with an F. Yeah, there you go.

Shay

Foulk: Yep, yep. And listeners back home will be familiar with it.

Nikki: Yeah, so we just can spray the trees like Niki was mentioning to me because I particularly didn't know about this one. So you can spray everything, it won't damage the coffee trees. It's just like that, right?

Shay

Foulk: So what's the ideal, um, understory look like for the coffee trees then? I know you do some mulching, correct? But is there an ideal ground cover, or is it better to just have it bare for production?

Rod: Uh, for me personally, my personal experience is you have your rows. Anything that is your stock is here, you want a clear— I would say about 8 inches inches on each side with nothing, and then you have your grass row.

Nikki: Okay.

Rod: Yeah, mine's a little different.

Nikki: I'm sorry.

Shay

Foulk: So 8 inches to a foot?

Rod: Yeah, because what that does is when you're throwing fertilizer, you're actually throwing it to the nutrients of the tree. Because if I allow the grass to just take over my trees and I'm throwing fertilizer, I'm feeding the grass, I'm not feeding my trees, right? So you need to look at is making sure that your tree is getting the most nutrients it can, right? So clearing that pathway, and it also helps with, um, the ants, the ant control. It helps with all the other insects that are in the field because when you have that clear way, you can see everything that's happening. If I just let grass grow all over the place, I'm not gonna know what's happening.

Nikki: And also the, the way that the roots of the, the coffee trees, right? So we have like the people type of root, but you have all these ramifications in the top part that goes like this. So you want to, like, when you're fertilizing, you want to fertilize on top of these ones. So that's the, the two feet, right?

Shay

Foulk: So within that two feet, you want all your feeder roots to be picking up those nutrients, because if you have like grass growing there, like, it's taking all the nutrients that's supposed to go to that root, right? Right. And that's not something that we see in our industry as much. There are some producers out there that are doing intercropping and double cropping as well, especially when you look at forage mixtures, but we're more so just trying not to feed the weeds that are out there. And a little bit easier for us, I guess, on that side of things, if that makes sense.

Nikki: Looking into coffee, and like, this is my experience back in Brazil, looking to coffee, you could rotate, right? You could use like this, well, what do you like using a different crop in between the rows.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, intercropping.

Nikki: Like intercropping, right? Maybe you can use for fern. Okay. Right, for, or for grass or for animals. Yep. Right, so you can do, it's just a matter of how you manage it.

Shay

Foulk: Right.

Nikki: Right, because you don't want that intercrop to take control.

Shay

Foulk: And that's with any intercropping system is making sure that, you know, your secondary crop does not take over. So I guess moving in, we'll talk a little bit about the season here in a minute, but what do you expect for yields, I guess, not only on a per tree basis, maybe on an annual basis, and then also where do you see the future of the yields going? Is it improving? Is it pretty steady?

Nikki: Yes, and this is like Mickey's experience on growing coffee here in Hawaii helped like a lot. We like, we were discussing like comparing from last year to this year, like changing the fertilizer program, and that helped a lot. Okay. And that's what we're seeing now. The, the cherries are ripening like better and they're getting bigger. Instead of just using macronutrients, we are using a little bit of the micronutrients in there, like when is the right time. Okay. So like I was saying, like last year we had a volcano, which affected a lot. So we normally get like between 80,000% or 80,000 pounds to 100,000 pounds of cherry per year. And last year we got 42, and now we are at a point that we almost produce like everything that we produce last year. So we are at 31,000-32,000 pounds.

Shay

Foulk: And this is early in the season.

Nikki: Early in the season, right. So like I was discussing this with Nikki, I didn't want to share this to anybody yet, but since we're talking about it, like, I'm expecting this year to be like even a little bit more than 100,000 pounds.

Shay

Foulk: That's phenomenal.

Nikki: I don't know if it's gonna happen. It looks like it's gonna happen, so I just wanna—

Shay

Foulk: yeah, knock on wood, right? Yeah. And, and so for those listening, if you don't remember, Hawaii is a volcanic area. Uh, in 2018 had some volcanic eruptions that disturbed a lot of the area and is mainly due to the cloud cover, right?

Nikki: Yeah, yeah, the fog that was coming because normally the way that the wind blows, it blows to the west side, west side of the island. So even though the volcano was on the east side, the south side of the island was blowing out the fog here, right? So we almost couldn't see the ocean Wow. There, so was—

Shay

Foulk: and basically a 50% yield reduction.

Nikki: Yep. Or more.

Shay

Foulk: And now that was pretty much through the Kona region?

Rod: That was throughout basically every place but I would say the north end, which is Hawi.

Nikki: Okay.

Rod: Um, you know, the one thing about with the volcano last year that I always try and explain to people, every day district went through something. So with the Hilo end, yes, they had the lava flow, but believe it or not, they had the best air quality because the wind blows Kona side. But what happened right after the volcano stopped? The hurricane came. So a lot of the crops there got dealt with, the flooding out of everything through the rainstorms. Uh, for us here in Kona, we dealt with so much vog. There was days that we would be wearing masks coming to work, uh, and what it is, is we don't have that sunlight that is on your fruits. Your fruits can't ripen and they'll basically die off the tree, which is called a dieback because it's not getting enough nutrients.

On the south side of the island, it was a little bit different because they wasn't dealing with just the volcano, they were dealing with the volcanic ash plumes landing on top their crops. So they had to deal with it a little bit differently because you can't just go and spray the ash because it becomes like cement, right? So you're basically suffocating your tree. So you have to go and get blowers to blow off the ash off of your tree, off of your rows, go back through, and you had to physically— and we've done it here too— where we had to physically fill up our water, um, our sprayers and actually spray the trees with water just so that the leaves would be able to take in some of that water into it. So it was a crazy time of year.

Shay

Foulk: But you don't have any other option. Yeah, I mean, the plants die.

Rod: Yes. But what was really unique, and this is something that we were talking about not too long ago, is, um, so the ending of last season is when we're we actually changed over the fertilizer. But what also happened is when the volcano stopped, our trees went into producing mode. So we started flowering a month before our normal flowering. Um, and it was very interesting because usually you get 4 flowerings. We're at 7. Wow. Which is unheard of. So it hurt us last year, but it looks like it's gonna help us this upcoming season to make up the balance. But it's all about timing, knowing when to throw your fertilizer so that way your tree is giving it what it needs at that certain point so none of your fruit fall off the trees.

Shay

Foulk: And that's about it. I think we had mentioned earlier offline here, Rod, 2 years to kind of get back into maybe a more normal production year. Is that right?

Nikki: And because like trees and any other tree, any other crop, like a living thing, right? Right. So it's not just something that you do, it's going to respond to you right away. Yeah. And the, the same thing for, for the coffee. That's why we had so low production last year too. Like Nikki was saying, like the dieback, right? So the tree, the, the cherries, they would not ripen, they would go yellow and die.

Shay

Foulk: And that's disheartening, right?

Nikki: And, uh, is basically the tree going to a survival mode. So he's trying to drop all the seeds that he can, right? So we were done September last year, we were done with the harvest. Like, that's it. Yeah.

Shay

Foulk: And that's interesting too. I mean, we have the same thing with, you know, corn production too. You'll see tip back, you'll see dieback associated with that. As we mentioned earlier, we had in the Midwest a period where, you know, 2 months a lot of areas did not see hardly any rainfall at all. We did get some rains here recently that helped us out, but we see the same effects of that. And another interesting note that I want to make that you mentioned, that you hit on there, is it doesn't change just like that. I mean, this is a 2, 3, 5-year difference. And what we see with that is not only different fertilizer and management plans, but also tillage practices, application practices, you know, the type of equipment that you're using. We see that too. And a lot of people, it's hard hard to understand that it takes time.

Rod: Our biggest struggle, um, prior to me and him entering into these positions was, uh, like I said, I've been in coffee for a really long time, and pruning is really important, and there's a time to do it, there's a way to do it to maximize your field and maximize everything that's around it. Well, let's just say 4 years prior to us, it wasn't done properly. So we were still dealing with the lack of farm management and practices when we came into this position. So we were struggling, I think, with getting the field to where it needed to be, but we had to explain that it's not going to be an automatic. We're going to see the big bang of it in 2 years because now we've pruned it, right? But now we got to wait for the production to come. We got to wait for the trees to mature. So that was a big thing because people are like, what are you doing? I'm like, oh well, we have to do this.

If not, we're just not gonna have production, right? And so we had to explain.

Nikki: And especially if you do like agriculture for a business, right, you want to get like a consistent like result or consistent yield, right? Sometimes you're gonna have like not just Volcano Whites, but you have 40% of our production one year, and then you have 100% the other year, and then 30% the other year. So that doesn't make any sense. So you want to have like an average, like consistent, like production. And that you only get if you have like a consistent method. Yep. Of growing it or like maintaining it or tillage. And that's like what you mentioned, like the machinery you use. And here is such as like a steep terrain, rock, uh, rocky soil that you— we can't basically use like any, right?

Shay

Foulk: I haven't seen any tractors rolling around here. Right here, yeah, the two hands, that's your machinery.

Nikki: We do have, but out of 7 blocks that we have of coffee, we're using 2 or 3. Okay, the other one, everything has to be by hand, right? Like the pruning by hand, like chainsaw, chainsaw, right? Yep. One by one, 8,932 trees in 2 months and a half, 3, 3 months, one by one. So it's, it's good because you're getting your hands into the trees and you know how much that tree is going to produce eventually, but it's hard too because you need to manage time, equipment And then the results that everything that you did.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, well, and I think if you told a farmer in the Midwest that they had to go over however many acres they have and, you know, touch every one of 30,000 or 35,000 plants that they have on that acre, it's significant.

Rod: Like stomping. So there's pruning that we do every year where we prune up our trees. But for stomping, it's usually a rotation of 1/3. Okay. So it's every third row, so that way it's a consistent number. A lot of people went into block stomping and they regret it because when you have 5 blocks and I stomp 3 of them, you're only producing off of 2. And of course it's gonna shrink.

Shay

Foulk: Right.

Rod: So that's why they went into the every third row. Okay. Um, to where, you know, consistently it's going to be— you can minus that one-third out, right? Because it's gone. But then you create a cycle. So you're gonna— every third row, the next year that tree's starting to come up, you do the next row. So this one's going to start producing for you, lose this one. So you're always at that one-third loss, right? So you can have a very consistent number right across.

Nikki: And by rotating it, like, your tree is going to be producing more instead of you just leaving it there. So the loss that you're going to take is going to come like in yodin production from that tree that you stumped like the previous year.

Shay

Foulk: So that 1/3 rotation, is that something that you gain from experience or research has been done into that?

Rod: Uh, you know, it's both. Okay. Um, you know, when we got into— well, when I got into coffee It was— everything was about cutting everything down. Okay, you start fresh, but the thing is, then you lose your whole production for a year and a half, 2 years. So you couldn't do that because then you'd be out of business for 2 years, and you're like, oh, I'm back in business. So it started, okay, what if we stomp down one block? And then we started doing, um, okay, instead of one block What if we do every 4 rows? So it was an experiment. Then what they realized is when they do every 4 rows, it's just not enough. Okay. So when they started doing every 3 rows, they realized, oh, we're keeping our production high where it's stable, we're not losing too much, and it's actually manageable to do.

Because when a lot of people don't realize, after you stomp a tree, that's only just the first stage. Then you actually have your select pruning. Then you have, you know, all these maintenance into these trees that aren't producing. So when you do a whole block, I won't see you for a month, right? Have fun. Um, and a lot of it is because, yeah, it grows suckers and you got to pick the best suckers and you got to know what you're doing. So it takes time to actually look at your tree, see which branch is going to produce for you, which one is the strongest, right? So it's more to it than just cutting down a tree. So that every third row became manageable for people to be able to go in and hand-select what the ones that they wanted, not lose so much crop, and create a cycle to where you're constantly in full production.

Shay

Foulk: And how long do you anticipate with this rotation of every third for that plant to survive?

Rod: Over 100 years.

Shay

Foulk: 100 years, okay. And that's— now these are grafted plants or grafted trees, do I understand that correctly? And now with your experience on, on that, and you have experience as well, what, um, what does that look like? What does that grafting actually entail?

Nikki: Like, grafting is tricky, right? Because like, people there, they're listening to, is they know this already. Yeah, it's like when you graft a tree, like there is so much possibility to get like diseases. Okay, right. So we do, uh, two varieties normally, the La Iberica root system and the Robusta root system. And to be called Kona coffee needs to be Arabica. Yeah, right. So we do the top, or I don't know how you call it, the top part. Yep, right. Yeah, the main one is Arabica, and the root system is Liberica robusta. Liberica robusta because they have a stronger root system.

Shay

Foulk: Okay.

Nikki: Right, so they grow better under this environment.

Rod: Disease control.

Nikki: Disease control too.

Shay

Foulk: Okay, for that variety.

Nikki: Yeah. So if you use only Arabica, then you would have like your, like your main, uh, root turning to a J. If it turns into a J, then it dies. Yes. Right, so we use mainly this too, and it works great. The, like, from my perspective, from looking at the trees, and maybe I think he has more insight about it too, but like the Robusta, it grows better. Okay, they, they grow healthier and they produce eventually better because the roots are there, are healthier.

Shay

Foulk: And how long has that grafting been part of the industry?

Rod: Uh, grafting Gardening came in probably about— they started doing it probably about 25 years ago.

Shay

Foulk: 25 years ago? Yeah. So right about the time that— yeah, Kona Joe's would have started.

Rod: Yeah. And it's interesting because a lot of people don't realize coffee trees, gardenia plants, they're related. So you could literally take a gardenia plant and graft the coffee tree on it, and you have gardenia flowers on the bottom and then coffee on on the top. Wow. Um, and it's— I think with—

Nikki: we do have some.

Rod: Yeah. Um, I think the most important thing when we're grafting is making sure the rootstock itself is very strong.

Shay

Foulk: Okay.

Rod: Uh, a lot of it has to do with, like I say, we're growing in blue rock. It's solid rock. Uh, the plain Arabica or Typica variety of coffee, those roots tend to turn, or what we call J-root. And what happens, your tree will literally start to tilt and it'll actually crack off right at the, uh, taproot. But with the, the Barrica and the Robusta, you'll notice that it's a lot more straighter and it's a lot more thicker, right? So we're using it because it can withstand the environment. But when you graft on an Arabica, you're actually still getting Arabica, right? So that's the kind of cool thing about it. But there are people actually on the island that do do it from seed, but it just takes so much longer.

Shay

Foulk: So you're doing the grafting here in-house, or is that—

Rod: no, from someone else?

Nikki: Okay, someone does it for us and then we go and check the quality of the grafted trees and then we bring it in, right?

Shay

Foulk: And that makes sense. You You got to do what you're good at.

Nikki: They used to do it in the past, that's why we have the greenhouse there. Okay. But it's just like became into a cost-wise situation that was better to outsource it, right?

Shay

Foulk: Absolutely. Now let's back up here, I guess, a little bit, and if you could just take a couple minutes to kind of outline, uh, the growing season. Is, you know, it's not a, uh, a common, okay, we plant and then blooming and harvest, you know, it's I mean, it's similar but different, right?

Rod: You'd be surprised how many people stay on a schedule. Okay. You know, I can tell you right now, our flowering season, we usually start January. Okay. Mid-January, you're gonna get your first flowering. Usually that season lasts maybe about 2 months.

Nikki: 2 months, yeah.

Rod: 2 months, and you get all of about 4 flowerings. Your harvest season is exactly 6 months after that. So once you flower— and that's the one thing that we've been really good at, is we actually mark on our calendar when our flowerings happen so we know when we need to be going out there and checking the cherry for ripeness. Um, because for how long they set too.

Nikki: Yeah, because they're supposed to set like here, and like we were mentioning about this, this year here in Kona they normally set for 4 days. Yes, like in Brazil they set for 7 days. So if they set for 4 days here you know that you're going to have like fruits, right? Right. And if they abort before, then you're losing.

Rod: He was actually freaking out. He was like, the flowers are falling off too soon. I'm like, no, that's just the way it is.

Nikki: Yeah, because for me it was like 7 days and was like, my God, like 5 days, 4 days, and they're like dying. I was like, oh, something is happening. But here in Kona is 4 days, 4 to 5 days, and then I often you see the berries coming out.

Shay

Foulk: So with the 4 flowerings for those listening, you have the 4 to 5 days, those are coming every, you know, consistently over a month?

Nikki: Like, uh, weeks. Like, you see like one week, the 4 days, one flower, 4 days, and then you have like a week, a week and a half, and then you see the next one. A week, a week and a half, you have the next one. Okay. The, the first one is like a light one, and then you have the second one and the third one, the main ones. Okay. Then you have a light one.

Shay

Foulk: Maybe over a month and a half, then you're seeing those 4 flowers. And you said 7 flowerings this year.

Rod: And what triggered a lot of it, uh, and what people don't realize is every rainfall forces flowering. So it all depends. So like, we're in hurricane season right now, and, um, if we get a lot of big rainfall, we're gonna get one more flowering that happens on the trees. That's just how it works. Anytime you look in coffee, as soon as you see heavy rainfall look for white flowers, or you look for the buds, because within 3 or 4 days you're gonna see those buds start coming up. Um, and that's why with the flowering, it comes in January, because January is actually one of our wettest months.

Shay

Foulk: Okay, and what is your rainfall in this area? Are you 45 to 50 inches of rain or a year? A year. For a year annually?

Nikki: Yeah, it was the 30. I— the last time that I checked was last week, 30-something. Yeah, almost 48.

Shay

Foulk: Okay, interesting. And that's actually pretty similar to a lot of the areas in the Midwest too, um, but I think your, your patterns are a little different as far as when your rainfall comes, the amounts that you get at a time.

Rod: And we're on a tropical island, expect the unexpected, right? That's what I always say.

Nikki: But it's— everything is so intense, so you have like rain— when the rain comes, like we have the rainy season, just like comes like at once and stay for 2 months, I say, because it has been raining for every day for almost 2 months now, like every single day. Yeah, and it rains for 3 or 4, about 3 or 4 hours.

Rod: Okay, then all of a sudden you're just gonna be baking hot in the sun.

Nikki: Yep, which is October, September, late September, October, then you're gonna be like just sunny hot.

Shay

Foulk: Right now with the flowering, what's the biggest factor for, uh, pollination?

Rod: Airflow.

Shay

Foulk: Airflow, okay.

Rod: And that's why being on the hilltop, being in the trellis system, it helps us out so much more. And that's where that 40% really comes in, because when you open up a tree— so coffee flowers are actually self-pollinating. We let bees in, we ain't gonna chase them away, they're helping us, right? But if they weren't, as long as there was aeration through the trees, we can get the pollination. And so by being on that hilltop, we're using that mountain air that comes down to help us pollinate our trees. By opening up the tree, you get more airflow through. That means you get more pollination. So that is one of the biggest things that people don't realize. They think that, um, that, you know, you can just put a coffee tree in a room with no airflow and it's going to produce for you.

No, it needs some type of movement to cause that pollination to happen, and the airflow just works out perfect where we're at with the mountain air, especially with the ocean breeze that comes up. So we're getting it in both directions, right, which helps us a lot.

Shay

Foulk: That's very interesting. And so pollination, you're doing your critical insecticide spraying throughout that. Any other primary management throughout throughout the season that you have, or, you know, pruning obviously is almost a continuous process, right?

Nikki: Continuous process, that's like the main like one too, because growing coffee in the trellis is like a new thing. Like for me it's new, like for Nikki she was here before, but you need to be constantly out there and looking at the trees and maybe training them and to see if actually that tree or that branch is is being supported by the wires and if they're not leaning to the side too much. So pruning and maintaining the tree.

Shay

Foulk: Okay.

Nikki: And are you—

Shay

Foulk: throughout the year, are you actually tying— you're tying to the trellis, correct?

Nikki: Okay.

Rod: So in the, in the trends, you have the bottom wire for the irrigation, the main one, uh, like about where you take the two bottom laterals, the strongest bottom laterals, and we actually twist them to the opposite direction, and we'll slowly start tying them out to stretch along that wire. And we do that for about 2.5 feet on each side. Okay. Once that happens, we'll actually leave the wires there to strengthen that branch. And what will happen is that the ends of those branches search for the sunlight coming up, so they create, like I always say, a pitchfork where you have your first main that came came down, and you need 2 bottoms. Now you stretch it out past that, and now you've opened up the tree, right? Yeah, so that's kind of the, the big thing about the trellis is that you need to be able to, like I say, be selective on which ones you're doing that to.

As well as, just like any other tree, it's going to start throwing up suckers all over the place. You need to be able to go ahead and Select the best, get rid of what you don't need. And that's something that me and him always talk about, is suckers just take nutrients from your tree. They don't produce for you. So you need to pull as much of those out unless you're planning on making that one of your verticals, right? That way all the nutrients is actually going to the, to the tree as well as to the fruit. So that was something that we went through last season.

Nikki: A lot. And because like, if you— every vertical, if you bend to the side, that vertical eventually is gonna turn into a lateral. Okay, right. Yeah, right. So you turn into a lateral and then it's gonna give new verticals, right? So if you're bending and twisting to the side and training to go sideways, you have your main one, you have the other ones, but that gap in between, you're gonna see a lot.

Shay

Foulk: Gotcha.

Nikki: Yep, right. So that's the tricky part, like, to see how much they're producing. If, for example, in the trellis, you want to expect like between 12 pounds, 14 pounds a tree. Okay. Normally, regularly, a tree produce like 10, 11, 10, 12 pounds a tree. So if you're getting that 14 pounds a tree. And the size that you want, okay, that's what we went through like this year to see 3, 4, 5 verticals, like 9 verticals. It depends like on the tree and if actually you don't have like too many suckers there.

Shay

Foulk: So are you keeping management records on that as far as, or is that just a know-how? I'm assuming you document it, right?

Nikki: I document like each block we have like one specific record for each one. That's awesome. Like, which fertilizer we're using, like how much coffee we're getting from each. Now, like, we're getting from each block. Eventually, maybe we're gonna talk about this later, but when I get, like, the— we want to get how much each line, each row is producing, right? So now we know exactly how much each block is producing. So eventually we're gonna go like— maybe one day that keeps tree.

Rod: With coffee, it's never gonna be super consistent. You can get an average, and the reason for that is younger trees are gonna produce less, and then your older trees are gonna produce more. And by cutting down the trees or stomping them every 3 years, now you create that cycle again. So one row that he stumped last year may produce— just a round number that I'm throwing out there— maybe I'll produce 200 pounds on that row because it's young, right? But the following year, that same row is now in full production, and so now you're going to be getting your 15, 14 pounds a tree. So it varies depending on what row you're actually stomping, how many rows you stomped. So that's why the track record, because when trees are growing, once it hits the third year after you stomp, you kind of forget when you did it. So that's why you got to go back and be like, oh, when did I do this one?

Okay, now it's that time. Yep. So he's an awesome record keeper.

Shay

Foulk: Do you have any digital recording or is it all—

Nikki: Nope, it's all on paper. Excel spreadsheets.

Shay

Foulk: Yes, yes, old school, make the world go round. Yep.

Nikki: So any—

Shay

Foulk: yeah, right. So outside of pruning before harvest, any other key management that we're maybe missing on here?

Rod: Uh, the other management is just making sure that your field is ready for your pickers. Okay. Um, because we hand harvest, it's a little bit more difficult than just like Mechanical.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah.

Rod: You say mechanical when they're just constantly—

Nikki: Yeah, because you have people there. Right. You don't want to have like huge— Rocks and grass. King grass or rocks like there because that can be like a safety stuff for them too. And it's a hard job and we want to make it as easy as possible for them too. Yeah. Because they're handpicking everything and stuff and they want the production because they want to get paid for the pounds that they they pick, we want a good production too, the good quality cherries. So it's just a win-win situation.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, absolutely, that makes complete sense. Field management. Now, okay, so with harvest, uh, you said basically a 3-month, 4-month period, August to December? December, yeah.

Nikki: Okay, 4 or 5 months. Yeah.

Shay

Foulk: And we had talked about this earlier, but any of the berries, because they ripen at different times, um, if there's still berries left over that aren't ripe at a certain time, you're pruning those and we strip them. Strip them.

Nikki: Okay, so you need to move, like, remove like as much as you can because that's going to be like we were talking about the CBB, the coffee borer. But if you don't, that's like, it's gonna like attract your beetle to come back, right? So you want to strip your trees even though, like, Nikki was saying, you have like a really like rain in August, maybe eventually you're gonna see like some bibis, some berries coming, right, in September, October. That's not gonna be ready in December, right?

Shay

Foulk: So eventually that you have to strip it, strip them, yeah, reset, get ready for the next crop. Yeah, very interesting.

Rod: So farm maintenance is like tree maintenance, and farm maintenance is key. 3 things that you don't want want, um, for me anyway, tall grass around your trees during harvest season. Second thing you want to do is, uh, is actually clean around your trees after harvest season. Remove any old cherries that may have fallen onto the ground, because what can happen is that beetle will be in that cherry and it can live in there. Um, so if I don't clean up under my tree, I'm just reinfesting my next crop, right? The other thing is cleaning your trees, making sure that there's no purples or what we call raisins or overripes on top of your trees. You actually want to start your flowering season with nothing on there. Okay.

Um, that way you can keep your percentage being very low inside of the CBB, but as well as you'll notice that your fruit, your flowering and your fruits come very, very consistent. Because if I just left every flower that was left on there, I'd be picking year-round, and it'd be like 5 pounds here, 10 pounds there. But by doing that, we're able to be like, okay, it flowered in January, we know this is when it's gonna happen. So you can kind of be in a cycle, unless like last year, weather was completely backwards. Yeah, so I couldn't even time anything out once the volcano started.

Nikki: And just to mention, since we were mentioning about the pikachu, is that's a a big difference. So if you, if you know which pickers you're hiring, because they can damage your tree.

Shay

Foulk: True.

Nikki: Oh yeah, just like mechanical harvest, right? If they don't know what they're doing, like, they can just break the branches or pick the wrong ones, or even the leaves. If they take too much of the leaves, that branch is not going to produce like the following year, right? So it's about like field maintenance too, and knowing the people that you're hiring to do the job.

Shay

Foulk: Crucial. So hiring the right people, proper training, proper demonstration, and then also following up and checking to make sure they're doing the job correctly. Yeah, yeah, that's crucial.

Nikki: Very crucial.

Shay

Foulk: So harvest happens, all right, so you're pulling the ripe cherries off. What happens after that?

Rod: 12 hours you have to process.

Shay

Foulk: 12 hours to process.

Rod: So I, I don't know if anyone has ever seen a coffee fruit or a coffee cherry. It's a cherry because it's an actual fruit, um, before it turns into coffee. But there's different layers of a coffee cherry. So there is a red outer skin. Under that red outer skin, there's also called the mucilage layer, the sugar layer. It's a gel coat. Underneath that is what we call our parchment skin. Underneath that, there is what we call our silver skin. So there's 4 layers that we actually have to go through in order to get to that green bean. So what usually happens is every day that the harvest is done, Rodrigo will go behind at 6 o'clock and run through the field, pick up all the bags of cherry, weigh them, grade them. When we were talking about grading, he's looking for color, he's looking for consistency in the picking, making sure there isn't any green coffee cherries in there.

And from there, it'll go into the wet mill.

Nikki: Okay. In the wet mill, like we were mentioning before, we have 4 machines: 2, uh, pulpers, demucifiers, and a skin auger. Then we have 2 propane-based, uh, dryers. Okay. So normally our pickers, they pick like 2,000 lbs, 2,500 lbs, between 1,500 lbs, 2,500 lbs a day. Okay. Depending on the day. And so we take all the coffee, start at 7, finish at 7, 6:30. Wet mill and then start to wait, grade the coffee, and it runs through the pulper, the skin auger, and the mucifier, and then we put in a big tank with water. So there it sits like tops for 3 days, because if it goes like more than 3 days, it ferments too much, because we want like that layer of pulp or the mucilage to be dissolved.

Shay

Foulk: So that it actually sloughs off of the green bean then?

Nikki: Yes.

Shay

Foulk: Okay.

Nikki: So you can do in in a, in demystifier, right? Like just not like putting too much water, like where it goes in a demystifier. Yep. But if you're leaving in the tank because you don't know how much coffee you're getting one day and the other day, that's why we use the tank, right? So want that to— muesli to dissolve. And then from there we put in the propane, uh, uh, dryers. Dryers. So normally 5,000 lbs would take like between between 48 hours to 72 hours depending on the, on the day too.

Shay

Foulk: And so are you doing those batches separately? You said there's different trays in there, right?

Nikki: Yes. Okay. So we, uh, one of our dryers, uh, horizontal dryer, you have two compartments. Okay. Right. And the vertical one you have three. Gotcha. Right. So at a time, I like, I try to put like all the tree, uh, at the same time. In case no, I use the two bottom ones, and then the following day I put the last layer and I start to remove the other one. So we keep like adding and rotating the coffee in there.

Shay

Foulk: Do you keep track of that on a spreadsheet too? Gotta make sure you're not drying too long.

Nikki: Yeah, so it goes like every day because I also live down the farm. So every day in the morning I check the moisture on the beans. If we have coffee in the dryer, we're looking between 9% humidity, 12% humidity.

Shay

Foulk: So there's moisture sensors in the dryers that are telling you that?

Nikki: Not in the dryers, but we have like a moisture reader.

Shay

Foulk: A moisture reader. Oh, okay, right.

Nikki: Right, so we go there and take a sample, do 3 tests to see if it's consistent, and if it's between 9 and 12, and depend on the weather too. If it's like really rainy day, 9, then because we still need to transport the coffee from the farm up here.

Shay

Foulk: It'll pick up moisture on the and transportation. Yep, we see that with soybeans as well.

Rod: Yep. So here's talking about the demucifying and the fermentation. There is a reason why we actually do the tanks as well. So we're dealing with the seed of the coffee plant. It's alive, and coffee is super, super absorbent. So when you do the fermentation process and you let that sugar layer dissolve on its own, what you're also doing is giving that seed on the inside a chance get any extra sugars because the higher sugar content, the less acidity. So if I can get more sugars right towards the end of drying, it's better for me. Right. So it takes a little bit longer, but you get a better quality coffee. Wow. So that's one of the main reasons why we actually do what we do, as well as we can store more, but it's to actually bring up the quality of the coffee.

Shay

Foulk: That's awesome. I mean, it really is. I mean, it's a science. You know, when, when you think about it.

Nikki: And there's different process, and Nikki can talk about more about this, like more in details. There's different process on, like sometimes you can sun dry the cherries instead of just—

Rod: the natural process.

Nikki: Yeah, you just, instead of, uh, putting the machines or the demucifier or the, the, the pulper right away to do that though, like it's difficult. So because you want to get more quality, but if you sun dry it And if you go too far, maybe like 1 hour, 30 minutes, that goes further, you ruin the coffee. Right. Instead of getting a better quality coffee, you get like a worse quality coffee. So this is like more controlled. Yeah.

Rod: For us. Yeah. So basically there's a natural process. You'll see it in a lot of Ethiopian coffees where they'll pick the ripe cherries and they put it on basic —what would you call it?—pad. Like a pad, right? Yeah, yeah, it's like a cement pad and they'll lay out all the coffee cherries and you'll see somebody out there every 30 minutes rotating it. The reason for that is you actually have to get that even consistency happening, as well as what they're looking for is any molding that happens. Because that's the whole thing about naturals that really concerned me. Coffee, once you let it start to ferment in its skin, can cause a fungus basically on top of the coffee that you can't get rid of after processing. After it's roasted, it's called phenol, which is actually bad for us. Yep. So coffee can actually cause that.

So you need to be able to be in a controlled environment, knowing what your weather is going to be like, what is the temperatures like, is it going to be high humidity as you're drying it. So with that one, you're gonna notice a lot of people say it tastes more whiny or sour. You get more of the fermentation flavor in that. And then you also have what is called the honey or the semi-process. It's actually one of my favorite processes to do, but it's just a lot of labor. Basically what it is, is where you take your cherry and you only remove that red skin. So that mucilage layer, we actually dry it in that mucilage layer. Mucilage layer. Really? So yes, so what it does, it creates more of an earthy, buttery tone in the coffee. Um, uh, it's a little bit difficult to do because you're dealing with high moisture. So the first 48 hours is very crucial because you actually have to move it.

But because it's a mucilage or a sugar layer, guess what it does? It sticks to everything, right? So you actually have to constantly be moving it as you're drying it. And if you're doing complete sun-dried, it's even more of a labor-intensive. Yeah. So a lot of people, when they're doing the natural or they're also doing the honey process known as a semi, they'll take it to where their moisture content is about 15, and then they'll go ahead and put in the dryers to finish it off, because 15 to 10 is your hardest right, to get down. Yep. Um, especially like over here, we have such high humidity, it just continues to go back and forth. You don't want that to happen too often, right? Because then you're changing the inside of the actual green bean and the flavor profiles of your coffee. So a lot of times you get it to 15, goes into the dryer to just finish.

Nikki: That's the same thing that happens like with soybeans and corn. Right.

Shay

Foulk: Yep, same drying issues. You know, you have your techniques. People know when the correct time, the correct moisture is for the easiest dry down and the controlled dry down. And I can definitely see how that's critical here. And interesting, you know, the different processes too. I don't think a lot of people probably realize the variety of options and how that, you know, ultimately it affects everything, affects the flavor and the product and quality and even, you know, health issues, as you're saying, you know, that could have a significant impact there. So, okay, goes through the wet mill process, you're dried down now, you mentioned you bring it up to the dry mill.

Rod: I'm going to have a question for you. Okay, great. Okay, so say we did 100,000 lbs of coffee cherry off of our field, right? And we just went through this whole process. What do you think my weight loss is?

Shay

Foulk: Uh, 20%. Try 80. 80% weight loss. 20% is what we have. Wow, really?

Rod: And remember I was saying how Kona coffee, quality coffee, is more expensive?

Shay

Foulk: That's why.

Rod: There you go. Um, because there is— it's the total to get it down to green bean is actually 81% if done properly. Um, there's some people that lose even higher amounts of of that because they don't pay attention to what they're doing. But for us here, we're very consistent because mostly everything in a coffee cherry is moisture.

Shay

Foulk: Well, yeah, I was just gonna say, I mean, your, your harvest moisture percentage, I mean, you're at 98%, right? I mean, basically in order to get dried down, I'll say 100.

Rod: Yeah, yeah. So from 100,000, we're literally left with 20,000 pounds of green bean, right? And then on top of that, when you go into the roastery, from that point you lose another 20%. And the key thing to that is like, for us, we're all about quality. So we use our size grater, I mean our sizing machine, we use our gravity. All of those things, you actually lose a little bit more every time you use that, but you bring your quality higher because you can remove the rubbish, or what we call our 3X, some other beans, and basically things that you wouldn't want to use, um, but you lose that weight. So your quality, quality, it's just a small portion.

Shay

Foulk: So are you looking at— I'm, and I'm just ballparking here— 13,000 pounds roasted product?

Rod: Roasted product, 13 to 15, around there. Okay, it all really depends on the roast profiles that you use. Right. You can lose up to 20% in the Roastar, but you can lose as low as like 12%, like the Trellis Reserve is 12%, 13%. So it varies depending on the size of the bean, what is the moisture content, what roast profile that you're using, because I could do a fancy, extra fancy, and I roast it to a dark or an espresso, I'm gonna lose 20 to 25%.

Shay

Foulk: So, okay, let's come back to that. You're jumping ahead, you're getting right to where I want to go. Okay, so, you know, it comes to the dry mill and then you move to the gravity table, seed sizer, you know, talk through that process a little bit.

Nikki: So we have like the size grater, right? So you still have the hard skin, the parchment skin to get rid of. So we have a huller. So basically, his beans get the husk out of the beans, right? It goes to a wall that's flushed by air from the bottom to the top to get the extra skin that is still in there with the beans. Then from there, it goes to the size grater. So we have 6 sizes of screens. Shakes has little fingers in the bottom so the coffee doesn't get stuck, or any seed doesn't get stuck. And then it separates into extra fancy, fancy, Peaberry, number 1, prime, and mother mother beans.

Shay

Foulk: Now, is that industry-wide sizing?

Rod: Yeah. Okay. You also hear mother beans, also known as 3X.

Shay

Foulk: 3X. Okay. And so describe those sizes and the differences, if you would.

Nikki: You want to have, uh, for coffee, quality coffee, you want to have a big, big bean but a heavy bean. Big and heavy bean. So extra fancy and dense, right?

Shay

Foulk: Not heavy. Yeah, density, right? I know what you mean.

Nikki: English berry. Extra fancy and the fancy are the best quality ones, the biggest ones, the heaviest ones, right? And then you have the Peaberry, which is a specific thing. Then you have Number One and Prime, that's your kind of your everyday type of coffee, right? And then you have the mother beans, which is the light beans, the big one but it's light. Yep. So that we basically use for flavored coffee. Okay, right. Because then it has too much of the coffee flavor in it, right? And then the Peaberry is just a whole bean, okay, right? It looks like a pea, right? And every coffee cherry or fruit, it starts as one seed, then it splits into two, okay, right? And the Peaberry stays as one. Interesting.

Shay

Foulk: So you get that higher density in a smaller bean, right? Yeah.

Rod: 16 years ago We didn't know what it was.

Nikki: Yep, thought it was garbage. Yeah, people thought it was a defection of the beans. They used to dump the peaberry. Wow. Because they didn't know.

Shay

Foulk: And then we found out it's like one of the best to drink. And how did that come about?

Rod: I mean, by accident, going into the research behind every single, um, coffee, what was the health benefits? So which one was the highest in acidity? Which one was the lowest in acidity? Uh, which one was the smoothest? Which one Which one was the sweetest? Which one? And they were able to see that with the pea berry, because it gets double the amount of nutrients, it gets more sugars. So it brings down the acidity so low that like a flavor profile of a pea berry, it's like a coffee tea. It's very light and subtle, but your antioxidants and your caffeine levels through the roof because it's more concentrated. Very interesting.

Shay

Foulk: So It's husked, it's sized, uh, gravity table separated, uh, it's bagged at that point, correct? 100-pound bags. 100-pound bags.

Nikki: And it goes to a storage room.

Shay

Foulk: To a storage room. And what— I mean, why in the— why in the storage?

Nikki: What's the storage room? You can store like basically the same thing for grains, right? Right. You can store like coffee beans, you can store up to 2 years. Okay. Before they start losing quality and they change the color. Instead of looking green, they go into a yellow yellowish color, right? And then you want to keep like for 50 degrees— no, 50% humidity, 75 degrees. Okay. Right, and keep it there for 2 years. But our coffee, we run out like 8 months, we are out of it, and then we have it.

Shay

Foulk: So your production is matching your demand? Yes. Oh, it's close.

Rod: Demand is higher.

Nikki: Higher. Last year was like way higher.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, well, yeah, and They had talked about that, you know, before that you had to restrict where your production actually went to as a result of Kona Club members and those who pay for the product, right?

Nikki: So the coffee stays there for us for about 8 months, and then we only roast— and Niki can talk more in details about this too— we only roast when we need to roast. So we don't roast everything and the coffee seeds like roasted for months, right? So we normally roast like 2 times, uh, a week. So I bring the coffee from the, the dry mill, bring it to the roasting room, 100-pound bags at a time, and then we go into the profiles. So we're using Big Joe, Little Joe, Big Joe roaster. Big Joe is the big roaster, so it roasts up to 100 pounds at a time. Green bean, green bean, 100 pounds of green beans, uh, down to 25 pounds of green beans. Okay. And Little Joe goes from 25 pounds at a time to 5 pounds.

Shay

Foulk: Okay, so different batch sizes for different things. Okay, right.

Nikki: And we have our profiles there. We can do manually and we can do the profiles of the company too. So we have the Trellis Reserve, which is the extra fancy, the fancy green beans. Yep. There is a profile that we use that is the Trellis Reserve profile. That's our best coffee, then it has the profile there already, so you don't need to go through, right?

Shay

Foulk: Minimize like, uh, human errors. Yeah, you maintain that consistency, just like you want consistency in production, you want consistency in product. Yeah, and that's why, you know, it's on a different scale, but McDonald's, that's why people like McDonald's. You're getting the same product every single time. Well, with Kona Joe's, I mean, it's that same way because you're maintaining that same profile. Right? So the Master Roaster. Now you mentioned that, you know, you're proud of that. It's something that over your time in the industry that you gained that experience, and did you prompt that experience? How did that come about?

Rod: And then what exactly does that mean? You know, it was, haha, for me honestly the reason why I got into roasting is because, like I was saying, I was managing a different farm, right? But, uh, for me personally, I also do have my own coffee, right? And so when I got into doing coffee on my own and actually growing it and doing everything, I need to know what the end product was because I knew I could plant the tree, I knew I could produce it, but I couldn't tell what the true quality of that coffee was behind it unless I knew the finished product and what they're looking for, right? So I ended up teaming up with, believe it or not, my brother-in-law, which is a master roaster here as well. And me and him started swapping ideas, and he was like, hey, you want to learn how to roast? So I started roasting with him just on the side.

Just my first time ever roasting was in a wok, you know, but it also taught taught me how to use a lot of my senses when I was doing that. And when I— we got really serious about it, I basically told my husband, I need to go and know everything that there is to know. And that's when I actually went into school, started learning about different profiles, what happens in the chemistry of the coffee inside of there, how to create different flavors, and into the cupping. So that's the whole reason why I got into it. And what I realized is I'm able to help other people by doing what I do, right? Because there's so many small farmers here that want to make their own private label, but they just don't have the knowledge or the experience to do it. So they can come to me and be like, hey, this is how I grow my coffee, this is the type of coffee I grow, can you create something for me?

So it's kind of like being like a mad scientist, I guess. Um, and with roasting Roasting, it's all about being very precise, knowing exactly where you're at, where you're supposed to be, but the first thing about roasting is the quality from the field. If the quality is not in the field, it'll impact the flavor of your cup no matter how good of a roaster I am. As well as, for me, I'm always double-checking moisture. Because if the moisture is off, my roast profile is off. The moisture is too high, it's gonna lag my roast, which is gonna change and impact the flavor of the cup. If it's too low, it's gonna pick up the heat too fast. So these are all things that I have to be aware of when I'm roasting. But it's fun. You should do the Ultimate.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, well, and what's interesting to me is when you listen to master chefs from around the world, they understand that, as you mentioned, the fertility and the growing, that's what impacts the quality and taste, and it's no different in coffee. I mean, it's the exact same thing.

Rod: It's the same thing, you know, if we're not getting the highest amount of sugar, I know I'm gonna get a very acidic coffee. If I know that they're picking half-ripened, I know I'm gonna have a bitter coffee. You know, the one thing that I really like is when I went into school, we did what is called green bean grading, where, where you grade the green bean before it even goes into the roaster. So I can look for defects, like I can pick up a handful of green bean and tell you, oh, this one's white, it wasn't ready yet. Oh, that one's going to be a floater. Oh, this one looks like it's a little bit sour. So I was able to keen in on those things and bring it here to Kona Joe's as well as work alongside with him to make sure those imperfections doesn't happen, to make sure that every cup tastes the same over and over again.

Shay

Foulk: Where did you do your schooling at?

Rod: I had to fly to Seattle. Seattle, okay. And I did it in increments. It's not really cheap, um, yeah. So you go in and you learn like roaster safety, learn about the machines, and you learn into more of like the cupping and flavor profiles, and then you go into— it's funny because there's little small test roasters that you do test profiles on, and but a lot of it, it helped me doing that, but a lot of it that helped me was working alongside people here on the island. I got to know buying— besides my brother-in-law, which he's an awesome roaster, I got to meet so many other roasters here, and they all have their own nick and their own style. So what I've done along the years is took what they do and dismissed what I didn't like, right, and kept what I wanted and created my own unique style of roasting that works for me. Every roaster is completely different, right?

Shay

Foulk: Which is good. Yeah, he's giving a compliment there.

Rod: It was funny, it was his this is, I think, uh, third week here, and I— he had just learned how to roast, and we had an Ultimate tour where you actually teach people how to roast. And he texted me, he was like, I don't know what to do. Um, here I am.

Nikki: I can still like now show you the text that she sent to me, and I was reading the text, I was like, oh my God, like I have no idea what she's talking about.

Shay

Foulk: Too much at once.

Rod: I was like, oh, just do this and this, and he was The dropping temperature, the turning points, or the drop temperature.

Nikki: Drop temperature, what I'm dropping? Actually, I'm not dropping anything.

Shay

Foulk: She was just showing off.

Rod: Yeah, kind of. Actually, what I did the next day that I came in, I actually took him alongside me and showed him what I was meaning by the terminology that I was using. So a lot of times when I roast, sometimes I forget myself and I'll go into like real diabolical terminology. Terminology, like people would know what I'm talking about, right? Um, what I realized in the past years is to break it down to layman's terms, right? So like he was talking about bottom out numbers, that's when you put the coffee into the roaster and your temperature drops, so it's gonna bottom out at a bottom out number. So like for Big Joe, 100 pounds, if the moisture is consistent, 166 degrees is supposed to be bottom out number, right? And it's going to pause and it's going to start to climb. Once it starts to climb, that's what you call your turnaround temperature.

Um, so those are all the things I was telling him about.

Nikki: So basically see what's going on.

Rod: Yeah, because the first one is like your charge temperature, right? What you're actually bringing your roaster up to before you drop your green bean in. And for me, it's just like second nature, just like— yeah, yeah. And it was—

Nikki: but for me was nature too. I was looking at the minute the message, I was like, I have no idea.

Rod: He sent me the message and 2 minutes later he had like 5 paragraphs.

Shay

Foulk: Well, and that's no different than a grain dryer operator at home too. I mean, when your corn, when your corn comes in, or soybeans, or wheat, or whatever, when you're trying to dry it, it takes a really good drying operator to know what they're dealing with to get it to the correct moisture. And then you get into blending, you blend your different moistures that are coming in. I think anybody that's listening that has run a grain dryer with, you know, any amount of sophistication knows that it's a delicate process.

Nikki: Yeah, and like even drying the coffee down in the wet mill is each, like for them too, they wouldn't understand, like when you're drying the coffee or when you're storing the coffee or the grains, depending on the region where the grain or the coffee coffee beans are in the dryer, they dry on the trays, right? Yes, they dry differently. So you keep like, even though you have the machine like mixing and trying to get it even, hand or any other equipment to make it even, because you know that some place is going to dry it out faster, right? And the same thing for the roaster too.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, one, one note that I want to make that from our travel experience here that I've really noticed The culture, you know, the Hawaiian culture traditionally has been a lot about sharing and caring for each other and helping each other. And I, you know, I really see that not only in the passion for what you do, but sharing that knowledge and collaborating with others. I think that's phenomenal. I really do. And it's awesome to hear that you enjoy it, right?

Rod: You know, I think like for me, I have a lot of knowledge in certain things. Rod has a lot of knowledge in other aspects, and if we didn't collaborate, then we would never know. Um, like I was telling him, Brazil grows coffee a little bit different than how we grow coffee, and so it was an eye-opening experience for him. But it was also— I was able to take some knowledge that he had and be like, oh, I wonder if we could use it here. So we were able to bounce off each other, just like I do with other master roasters. And it's funny because now my brother-in-law, which was one of my teachers, calls me like, "Hey Nikki, what do you think about this?" and "Can you run this profile for me?" So everything is, for me personally, it's not only about the Kona region, it's about bringing Hawaiian coffee up as a whole.

Because if you come up as a whole, no matter what coffee you taste on the island, and no matter what coffee you taste, as long as it's good and, and high quality, guess what? You're going to continuously come back. And it shouldn't be to where, oh, this one's always going to stand out better than the other, but everybody's palate is different, right? So if you can nail down all those little aspects in the coffee, then you have a market that will never die. Mm-hmm. But it's when you cut corners, when you're not willing to collaborate, not willing to make the product better, that you'll start seeing a crash.

Shay

Foulk: And it's really interesting based on the regions, um, you know, with Ag View Solutions and the consulting side, you see different areas of some farms that are willing to share everything. They'll share their financial information, their practices, their markets, uh, you know, everything that they found that's helping them in doing right. And then you'll have different areas that they don't want to share anything. It's nobody's business. This is how I do my operation. And it's just an interesting dynamic, I guess. Yeah, it's everywhere, right?

Rod: I mean, I think what it is is just like anything else, when you come into an industry and you're new, um, like for me personally, when I came in, it was a no-no first of all to be a female, a master roaster and be in agriculture working coffee in the fields. So I struggled a little bit with that, but once you can prove yourself to where, like for me, I always tell them, "You need help in the field? Let me know. I'll come out there and jam with you. I have no problem with that. I'm not scared of the dirty work." When they see that and they see your passion for it, that's when they're gonna start being like, "Okay, I can trust her. Like, I want her to be better." like she's the next generation. They're just more selective because there's so many people here that will use your information to better them and say, oh no, I created it.

And for me, it's not like— for me personally, one thing I don't share is, I'm going to be honest, is some of my private profiles. I do roasting. Yeah, there's certain things that is like I roast for other people, they don't know what their profile is. And that's so that way they constantly come back to me, right?

Shay

Foulk: That's business.

Rod: Yeah, but if you want it, you can buy it for a price, right? I'm just like anything else. Yeah, but there's some things you, you can teach them. Like I, like I taught him, I taught him how to do a profile, and I'm like, now you got to create your own, you know, create your own niche, right? And that's how he grows as a person, because if I continue continuously just, oh, this is what you do, he can't open up his mind. Yeah, to other things.

Shay

Foulk: Oh, and that's great for the business and for people. I mean, it's growth, personal growth.

Rod: Yeah, trust me, over here in Kona it's very competitive, right? Um, you'll notice that Kona is one of the hardest parts of the island in coffee because it's— because now that they see like Kau is coming up, Hilo is coming up, there's so much competition that they're actually battling each other, you know. They were not willing to share secrets. They're not willing to, you know, and they're like, this is my family secret. And, um, which is all fine and well, but I come from a different aspect of it. Like, instead of me asking you, oh, what do you do? I'm like, what can I do to help you? Yes. When you change the dynamic, they look at you like, are 'Are you really wanting to do this?' Right. And then they respect you. Yeah. And that's the whole thing. You gotta create a platform of respect on every level, and you'll notice that now you're family to everybody. Yeah.

Shay

Foulk: You know, you take care of people, they take care of you. You take care of the land, the land takes care of you.

Nikki: You give before you receive, right? Yes. Give, give, give, ask.

Rod: Yeah. Yeah. Or, you know what, you'll notice too a lot of the times is you give, give, give, and you don't even have to ask. Now they're like, "What can I help you with?" Right. Um, and I think that's the solid part about like the Big Island or Hawaii in general is once you become connected, you are family. And so it changes the dynamic. Um, just like how I run things here. It's not Rodrigo is my farm manager. He's like my brother. Right.

Nikki: You know, and This is like what I was gonna say, like if I can mention from a personal side is like being a foreigner and doing something like that's unique, especially Kona Coffee, such a small space, and you see that exchange, you know, you don't feel like awkward. Yeah, like you know what I mean? Yeah. And like it's weird to say this, but we're being like you're working together for 2 years. Yes. Like, we had arguments, but arguments lasted for like, what, 30 minutes maybe? And then we were like exchanging again, like talking, you know? And that is like quite unusual, you know? And because problems you're gonna have everywhere. Yeah, right. And that's like job and life. Yeah. But if you're willing to just like get over it fast and learn from it and share and exchange stuff, it's a good environment to work in.

Rod: Yeah. Yeah. No, like, and that was really funny because that Hashanah argument was, um, something that was like a 5-minute fix, maybe a 30-second fix. It was just that we were so busy Right. We used to communicate daily, and then it went to where he was slammed in the field, I was slammed up here, and then that lack of communication really affects. Yes. So he actually thought I was mad at him, and I wasn't mad at him. And he came up to me, he's all like, why are you mad at me for? I'm like, I'm not mad at you. He says, yes you are, you're treating me dirty. No, wait. But after a while, when we actually sat down, we're like, you know what it is, is we're not sitting down and having having like our weekly meetings or every other day where we can discuss like what's happening.

Nikki: Close at 5 and we stay until 5:30. Yeah, just talking about the day and what we're planning for next week or next month.

Rod: And I was just like gone at 5:15. So, you know, it was a lot that went into it, but at the end of the day, I mean, him just agreed, like whether it's a text message, a phone call, or, you know, he's here a little earlier than me because he lives on property, to have that 5-10 minute conversation of, hey, this is what my plan is, or this is what I'm struggling with. That way we can actually communicate and figure out a way around it or how to solve it instead of thinking, oh, she didn't talk to me.

Nikki: And that's what we were just like, we were talking before, right? Like agriculture, like agriculture is tough. Right. Because you have to deal with plants and then you have to deal with costs.

Rod: And they don't talk back to you.

Nikki: They don't talk back to you. But you have like costs, like labor, then you have to put your product in the market. Right. And that's like intense. Yeah. Like for every like producer. Yeah. Right. And sometimes and most of the times we get frustrated because we have so much going on like behind and then you have like to look and try to sell your product. And then the market doesn't have like the right conditions for it, and they have to store it. Then you don't have money to support like the next season, and it's just like too much.

Shay

Foulk: Every farmer everywhere listening to this right now is shaking their head and saying yes.

Rod: You know, our hardest part is— and this is actually where we got frustrated last season with this 30-minute argument— was, you know, we were at the point where obviously our production was low, but we also need the pickers to go in. So he wasn't making— we didn't have product to sell to create that income to pay the pickers. So how, how do you adjust that, right? Um, which we're able to get through, but it takes creativity and it takes like two brains. And that's what I tell him, like, you know, I can't think of everything myself. So when you have an idea, shoot it my way. I'm not going to shoot it down. Or your idea and my idea might collaborate and might be perfect, which actually is what happened last year. We were able to get the pickers in, get the field cleaned.

Um, but it was all about just him being able to communicate to me like, hey, you know what, I need the extra income coming in. To support it. So what did I do? I made my tour guides push, and I made our salespeople really push, push the wholesale, you know, because we're all about being self-sustainable, right? There's a point in agriculture, you have a spending season, and you have, you know, right, there's a spending season, and it's hard because what you're spending on, you're not going to see the benefits of it till about 3 3 months later, right? So you have your buying, your buying season, your spending season, and your making money season. And sometimes they don't flow the way you want it to. Yeah. So sometimes you have to force the market. Um, what I mean by force the market is become creative in a way of how you sell your product, um, and be more knowledgeable.

And that was one thing, I wish Carlos was still here. If you met Carlos, you would have loved him. He was an intern here, and he was really good at taking what we do here and putting into words for people to understand. To understand, yeah. Because when you can get consumers to understand what you're trying to do and why your product is so unique, or why it's so much of a high quality, not only gain one sale, you gain a lifetime of sales, right? Because they constantly come back because that's what they want. Yeah. Um, so a lot of education. We even went into coffee school last season so that way they would actually know what happens in the field. Great. So a lot of the workers here, up here, they see this, so they know the, you know, the roasting process, you know, a drying mill, but they don't know about the labor that goes in there.

So going back into to coffee school for a couple months and telling them, hey, this is how long it takes for— if you do it from seed, this is how long it takes from, um, you know, grafting. And going into the labor things that they go into, it made our salespeople really understand what he was going through. Yeah.

Shay

Foulk: And Rod and I were talking about this a little bit offline, having that cross-training and that understanding, and, you know, just being just dangerous enough to know, you know, to know enough to talk to people about it have the understanding for your own, uh, day-to-day operations to improve that communication, right? Of knowing, hey, this is our spending season, things are going to be tight, this is what we need to do to facilitate that. It makes it easier for the whole team. Yeah. So that's awesome. And, you know, I love how you talked about the collaboration involved in there. As far as that collaboration goes, do you have any other, you know, I guess if you could explain to listeners a little better. What other markets are you looking at? You have local markets, international, large producers.

Rod: So right now, one thing that we do pride ourselves on is all those small farms here in the area. We try and support the local economy as much as possible. They don't have a facility like ours. They do everything by hand, or they have small little poppers that they're doing in their backyard. So we, what we actually do is we'll purchase their fruit off of their farm and that will help them, but for us we'll process it, break it down, roast it, but we'll call it what we call our Kainalio Coffee. It has nothing to do with the trellis. So it becomes more like a co-op coffee to where it's a mixture of different Kona coffees that come come together as one. And a lot of the reason for that is because I don't know what they're doing in their fields. Right. The cherry can look good, but I don't know what they threw as their fertilizer or what their farm practices are.

So because we can't define the flavor of every single farm that's in that bag, we call it kainalio, which is one tier down from our trellis. Okay. It's 100% Kona, right? But it's just you know, um, not ours directly. And then we also have our gourmet blend, our international blend, where we're using international coffees, a lot of them from Brazil, Colombia. Uh, the reason is all because of production. When your demand is higher than your production, right, you have to do something. Yeah. Um, and that's why International coffees or international blends, 10% blends, were actually introduced into the island. It wasn't to create a better quality cup of coffee. It allowed us to stretch our product for a longer period of time by using them. But the key things of that is when we're looking for international green beans, we're looking for cupping scores. Okay. Sizes, cupping scores.

The higher the cupping score, that's what we want. That means it's a better quality, as well as we're looking to stay within that Arabica typical variety of coffee. We don't want to switch varieties, right, because it's going to change the profile. Yeah, so that's a lot of the international stuff that we do here, and we created another blend, a higher-end blend. Uh, I think that one is with Brazil. Yeah, Brazil, um, which is called our Gourmet and what that is, is we add more Kona than international. But by adding that slight bit of international in there, we can bring the price down. We're talking about prices and expense and how expensive it is. Well, the blends gives people a chance and an opportunity to purchase at a cheaper rate. Yep. So where our highest-end coffee right now, an 8-ounce our Trellis Reserve is $60 for an 8-ounce.

So you turn around and you might go down to our Gourmet Blend, which you can do a medium, it's $25. Yep. But we add enough Kona in there for you to taste the flavor of the Kona. But by adding that little percentage of Brazil, I just brought down my costs big time, right? Um, a lot of it, they grow in hectares coffee. They can sell off their green bean very cheaply. Yeah. Versus here in Kona, good luck if you're buying green from anywhere in Kona if you're looking for good stuff. What I mean by good stuff is 18, 19s, fancy, extra fancy. You're looking at anywhere between $25 and $29 a pound. Wow. Versus I can bring it in from Brazil for $1.50 a pound. Wow. So that's how we're able to make that adjustment. It's not to make better coffee, it's just so that way— We're still having like good coffee.

Nikki: Yeah, it's like currency exchange, right?

Shay

Foulk: Well, and it's new markets and you're still providing a quality product, like you said, for people to get the taste of Kona and to understand, you know, what goes into it.

Rod: And a lot of people, they're here, they're on vacation, they're taking back gifts to their family, their friends, and and I always tell them, like, you want them to taste the Kona, but you don't want to spend the big money, right? Then you can actually go for the Kanalia, which is one tier down from us, or you can go to the Gourmet, which is a little bit cheaper. Yep. Um, and then you save whatever money, and then you get the good stuff for you. And that's, that's usually how it works. Like, I'm like, oh, who are you buying for? And you're like, oh, I'm buying for my dog sitter. Oh, are they a big coffee drinker? That's the first thing you want to know, because if they're a coffee connoisseur, no blend will ever do. They'll know exactly what they're looking for, right?

But if I'm buying for my dog walker that drinks coffee once a week and it's one cup, and then I'm gonna be like, oh, go get them the gourmet blend, because they can taste the Kona, but you're not spending $60. Yeah, you know. And I'm just like, this is the one. Yeah. You know, and I think that's what it is, is just being true and honest with your consumers. Yeah. Like when people ask—

Nikki: and like when you're talking about Carlos, it was like, oh yeah, him getting like understanding what people was asking for, like understanding like what the customers like wanted. Like, oh, but like $60 for a bag of coffee. Okay. Like that's pretty steep, right? Right, for 8 ounces. But if you think, like, he broke it down, like, everything, and the way that he was explaining to people, people were getting— because this is only a teaspoon that you're supposed to be using, right, for every 6-ounce cup of coffee. So 8-ounce bag should give you 45, 42, 45, like, cups of coffee, right? And $1.50 for a cup of coffee, which is fair. Yeah, absolutely fair.

Rod: I mean, this This is the biggest question I always ask everybody. When you go to it and you're getting like a 90, 95, like, points, but you go to a certain place and you order your coffee and you're adding all your cream and sugar and everything else, and at the end of your bill, your one cup of coffee just cost you $12, right? Go home, make it yourself, high quality, $1.50, right? And so when they start seeing that, they're like— and the biggest problem is 'Oh, I don't have time in the morning to do it.' And I'm like, 'You know what, then what you do is you do that on your day off, right?' You do it on your— like, for me, it's my Friday. Friday, I know I'm gonna wake up in the morning and I'm gonna, you know, do my French press or my pour-over or whatever it might be, and I'm gonna sit there for 2 hours and drink my cup of coffee.

Shay

Foulk: Or are you doing evening dinner espresso when you have guests over and family?

Rod: And so, you know, when you explain it them that way, they're like, oh yeah, well then that bag can actually last me, you know, how many weeks? And next thing you know, they're calling you on top of the phone. Can you get me 2 more pounds? Okay, I swear you're just in here a week ago. We just love the flavor, you know? And that's the whole thing. And that, that's my big thing is you cannot sell a product you do not believe in, right? Um, you have to stand behind your product 100%. And by saying that is, we drink the coffee. I can tell Rod when something's off. Yeah.

Nikki: Um, I drink like 10, 15 cups of coffee a day. Wow. I know about our coffee. Yeah, you know. And like, you see this hand, like the first round that I was explaining to you, we didn't have any pickers. Like, I literally, like me and my wife, we went went picking. I would pick the coffee, and this time I roasted the coffee too. Yeah, so I picked the coffee, processed the coffee, milled the coffee, and roasted the coffee. By the end of the day, that coffee was the one that, like, I picked 3 in the morning. 2 days later, I was roasting it.

Shay

Foulk: So, wow. Yeah, you know, that's phenomenal. Yeah, it really is.

Rod: And I, I gave him credit because I was a hand harvester for many years, and I still, I still, I was just picking on Friday, in fact, um, in the Kusai. But I told him, I said, I give you credit because it's not an easy job. Like, at first it was like, I'm like, yeah, wait till your lower back starts to go out on you, your fingers start cramping.

Nikki: And still, after like 8 hours, like regular shift, then you have to go pick it and processing the coffee. So it's more like now is what, like 15-hour shift? Yeah, a day. That's a big day. Yeah. That's our whole thing.

Rod: Yeah, there you go. No, but to me, I think picking coffee is more of a mind thing. Like, for me, I always tell them, when I'm in the field picking, that's my serenity because no one's around me. I'm not thinking of what is going to happen next. I'm just in that moment at that moment. But other people take it the complete opposite to where like, oh, it's just too much. Um, I've had people come in, several of them, I just want to experience what coffee picking is like. Okay, sure, put on a bucket on them, send them into the field. 45 minutes later, they're like, I'm over it, it's too hot, my back is sore, I can't reach the top branches, fire ants are killing me. Yeah, so, you know, I think everybody reacts to it a little bit differently, right? Um, but the people that are good, you'll notice that they're the ones that are hyper-focused. They just— no one's around you.

You're just there with the tree and the branch and the red cherries. Yep. And that's it. That's why I love it, because up here and down there, like Rod, our brains are constantly going. Yeah. So we can slow it down just for that one moment, even though it's hard labor work, at least it's peace.

Shay

Foulk: Well, and a lot of the farmers that we work with, you know, when you talk about the financing, the cash flow, the line of credit, you know, the 98% of things that make a daily operation, their favorite part is to sit in the combine or sit in the tractor, the harvester. And, and because it, it slows your mind down, that's all you're focused on.

Rod: Well, as well as being a manager on both sides, I think this is what Rod was going to say, is anytime you see a ripe cherry on the tree and you're looking at it, it's like red and plump, and it's just like money in the bucket. Yep. Yes. Even though it's tedious, it's like every cherry counts.

Nikki: Yeah, I literally do like that. Yeah. And like, that's like sitting on the combine. Yeah. So I'm like, for me, like, even though it's tiring because it's the end of the day, but just processing the cherries there, watching it, it's exhausting. But you, your mind, that's the favorite part ever. Or dry milling or roasting, right? Like when you're roasting, it's just like you, coffee beans, senses, like everything is just like—

Shay

Foulk: So when you're at the end of your 15-hour shift and you're putting 2,500 pounds into the dryer and you think, okay, well, this is only going to be 180 pounds by the time it's done. But then you think about that and you're like, okay, 150 or 180 pounds of product, you know, of quality product.

Rod: Well, this is the whole thing when you break it down. So you hope for— you hope for extra fancy and fancies, right? So usually that runs about 10%. So if you're ending up with 180, take 10% of that and then you turn around and times that by the $120 a pound, and you're like, oh, it is actually money in the bank, right? So you gotta like break it down in your head, and that's what I do a lot of to keep myself going. Yeah, because I'm just like, okay, you know, especially like in between seasons, right? Last season was like a bad season for us, and we're like, how do we get from one stage to the next stage? And as soon as those flowers went off, I was like, yes!

Nikki: Like when we saw the flowers and the flowers just came, I was like taking pictures like at once, like It was beautiful. And like one day I was like sleeping there, like 6 AM, I was like on my way up in the gator and I saw this white flowers. I said, Nikki, really? Like just like once.

Rod: But, but we go through that phases of like, especially when you have a hard season and you lose a lot of your crop and you're looking like, okay, how am I gonna actually be self-sustainable? How am I going to be able to make it to the next season? Now when you see the flowers is just like, oh, there's hope. Yes.

Nikki: And then when the flowers fall, like, you're looking at that when it falls in 5 days, when you're used to 7, then you freak out.

Rod: Yeah, so, you know, you're looking at that 5-day mark and you're like, oh, they're falling okay, like, they're not falling down early. You're like, okay, we're gonna have production. And then after that, it's like watching it grow throughout that 6 months and being like, oh, like, for me personally, I've been in coffee so long and I do this to Rod all the time. I'll grab out a branch and be like, "Peeberry extra fancy," because I kind of know the cherry size, right?

So I'm like, "Oh, we're gonna have a good harvest this year, you know, we're gonna have like big, bigger beans." And seeing the changes that we did and everything, it impacts like our mentality, and we're like, "Okay, we can't wait for the season to start." And then in a blink of an eye, we're like, "We need pickers, we need people." When you say like after like a 15-hour shift day like ends, like you look at the product and you see there's product there, the first thing, of course there is beer time always, but like before the beer is a cup of coffee and the cup of coffee that you produce.

Nikki: Right, yeah. Like the previous week. And this is like being honest and you do what you have to do, but you still enjoy what you're doing and the end product.

Shay

Foulk: And you said it earlier, You have to believe in the product and you have to enjoy what you're doing.

Rod: In all agriculture, right across the back, this is my whole thing. Agriculture, coffee, any industry that you're in, in agriculture, it's all about the love of what you do. Yes. Um, like for me, it's, it's like a passion for coffee. It's like a passion to know the knowledge and see it through to the end. And I think that's what all agriculture is. Like, if not, we'll give up. Like, oh yeah, it flowered, okay, I don't know what to do. But by seeing it flower and knowing what's going to happen next and being excited about me— about what happens next, and then actually getting down to that roasted product to where we can taste it and cup it and see what we produce. I think all agriculture is like that, just like soy or whatever it is that you— they do, right? Like that end product that you present. Yes. Is, is like the crucial point of I made it this far, I can do it again.

Shay

Foulk: It's what gets you going to next season.

Nikki: Yes, exactly. And like, rest, rest. You can rest one day. Yes, one day you're gonna rest. And like, if you enjoy, you can bring like your family into it. And this is agriculture we were talking before. Agriculture is like a unique thing. You're not like you're sitting in the office office all the time. In agriculture, like, you like use your family, like they go with you and process the coffee. They see you working and you turn into a fun, right, stuff, even though like it's tough, but you get to go.

Shay

Foulk: The kids hop in to check the fields and you do supper in the combine.

Rod: And he thinks I'm super crazy because I manage here 5 days a week. 9 hours a day, sometimes 10 depending on the day. But after that I go home, I do this all over again. Yep. My days off, I'm doing this. Like, then that's what I mean.

Nikki: Yesterday, how I finished processing the coffee at 10 PM, I texted her like about something else and she was like, oh my God, like, I just finished roasting, you know, because I live an hour and 10 minutes away, you know, from this particular place.

Rod: So, you know, when I go home, I always tell people, for me personally, it's always the excitement of what I'm going to produce, what am I going to do. Like, it's stressful because, you know, when you have orders coming in and it's like, oh, you know, how do you fit this all in the time, right? And like, for me, being in agriculture so long, you create the time.

Shay

Foulk: Yes, you make time for what you—

Rod: you make time. Yeah. And everybody goes, oh, what about your family? What about family time? You know, I do have kids. Yes. Guess what? They're all going to be ready to be agriculture— in agriculture. They're all going to know how to run a coffee farm. And a lot of people don't see like, oh, but you work them and they work the fields. And I said, you know why? Because work ethic. Yes. All about work ethic. I know I can send them into any industry now. Now, and I can walk away and know that they're going to do an awesome job because I taught them at a young age, right, what that is, and they're not scared to get dirty. And, um, that's why he's just like, really, Nikki, like, oh no, I gotta pack coffee and I gotta roast coffee and I gotta go up to the field and I gotta fertilize. So sometimes he calls me and one of my fields doesn't have service, so anytime I don't answer my phone.

Nikki: What are you doing like that? Well, not tiling, your field.

Rod: Oh, I'm mulching. Yeah. Oh, oh, bulldozing. Bulldozing. Yeah, because I just opened up more land, um, so I was bulldozing, and when I went on the big machines, obviously I can't hear my phone and there's no service up there, right? So I have to text him, I can't talk to you right now, and he'll be texting me back what's going on here. So, you know, they They are like, "How do you do it?" I said, "It's the love of it.

Shay

Foulk: It's the passion of it." Well, and I truly love to see that passion. I mean, it's phenomenal with all the people that we've interviewed and done podcasts with and that we work with with consulting. You see the passion throughout the industry. It's truly awesome. So to wrap things up here, you know, you guys have been with me here for a long time. I really appreciate that. What's most exciting to you in the next, you know, 3 years in the industry with Kona Joe's here, here at this facility? You know, what, what's the most exciting thing that you see ahead?

Rod: I'll let you go first.

Nikki: Okay. No, for me, because I've been here like for 2 years and it is kind of new thing for me too because I just got my family here, but seeing the products progress that we did, like, from one year to another, right? And next year, like, we're planning, like, to get the production, like, steady. And, you know, we see that we can do better, right? And by meaning, like, do better, it's just like we know that that 18 acres can produce more and better, right? And is not depending on us, I'm not saying that it's us, but it's like the product is there. It's just a matter of like getting it to the way it's supposed to be, and we see it coming. Yeah, you have the vision. Yes, like we see there, you know, and like we were saying before, if you love what you do, you expect good things to happen too, right?

Production-wise, uh, I think for Konichiwa, like You have like so many people coming more like this year compared to last year because everything that has been happening like with the volcano. But people— and again, this is new for me too for being here now— but if people understand that it's like volcano, it's all the way there, like it doesn't affect this side of the island. If something happens to this side of the island, it's gonna happen here, not there, right? So it keeps like the business or the economy, right, of the island, right?

Rod: You know, that's awesome. I think in 3 years, what do I— me personally, what I'm most excited about is for Kona Joe's is the quality of the coffee increasing. Like he said, seeing what we've done last season. Yeah, because we're gonna see that prune trees, we're gonna see those trees take off, we're gonna see them start producing and really see what we're able to do to do. Um, but the other thing that I'm really excited about is right now we have a really big Hawaiian market, and now we got to a point where our quality is so good that we're able to extend that to Japan, extend that internationally, where people in Japan can go to a cafe and drink Trellis Reserve.

So those are the things that I am super excited about, um, just coming from my aspect of marketing and the end result type of deal, uh, and not only that, I think that in 3 years, uh, because we are a young team, I can't wait to see what we're capable of doing in 3 years with the education, with the collaboration, with the teamwork, right? Uh, because I think in 3 years it's going to be unstoppable, right? Because I am It's going to be good for everybody in every single position, and it'll be good.

Shay

Foulk: So for those who haven't— who are listening and haven't tried Kona Coffee, I encourage everybody to. I love coffee. I drink it every single day. I mean, you know, what, what would your— what would— we're sitting out here in the rain. Other people are laughing at us. That's the dedication of Kona Joe's employees, is they're sitting in the rain to talk with us.

Rod: In actuality, I'm just I was gonna mention something, and this is something I thought Rod and it's a Hawaiian thing, but rain in Hawaiian is ua. They say when ua falls when you're in the middle of something, a conversation or something happening, it's a blessing. So I don't look at, I don't look at rain as being a bad thing. I look at it as blessing and feeding my tree, so rain away.

Shay

Foulk: Great.

Nikki: I love this place so much that I got married here in the rain. That's why it's called Vittis. Yes, yes, that's awesome.

Rod: It's always, you know, it's always about just— they tell rain is a blessing. It wipes away the negative and it gives back the natural and brightness of life. So I just want to share that.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, thank you. Well, and, you know, I'll wrap up here Kona Joe's, fantastic coffee. Anybody that's listening, I really encourage you to check it out. You know, if you've taken the time to listen to this podcast, they're truly passionate about what they do. They understand agriculture, and you know, coffee makes the world go around. It makes farming possible in all areas of the world. Yeah, that 4 o'clock morning, or if you're running all through the night, um, you know, give Kona Joe's a try. It truly is phenomenal. Great people. Nikki, Rod, thank you so much for taking the time to do this. I really appreciate it. And, uh, for everybody listening, thank you for listening to another episode, and we'll catch you next time on the Egg View Pitch. Thanks for listening, podcast. Please, please, please, if you enjoy coffee at all, I really encourage you to check out Joe's.

I'm not just saying that because I did the tour with them. They have fantastic coffee. I drink coffee daily, 6, 7, 8 cups a day, and really truly enjoy their products. So check them out. If you have any other questions for us, please feel free to reach out. cbarron@agviewsolutions.com. Hit us up on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook. You can find us at all those places. Go ahead and follow Kona Joe's, and we look forward to hearing any feedback that you have. Thanks for listening. We'll catch you next time on the Eggview Pitch.