Kona Historical Society open house showcases coffee roots

Leaning over a small gas stove, Miki Izu stirred a pan full of coffee beans as he talked about life on a coffee farm.

“I’m not teaching you how to roast coffee,” said the 92-year-old. “I’m demonstrating how our parents used to roast coffee.”

Izu, a volunteer with the Kona Historical Society, grew up about a mile south of Honaunau school. He said he still works on the farm now and then for exercise and volunteers with the society about once a week.

He demonstrated the roasting at the Kona Historical Society Kona Coffee Living History Farm’s “Made in Kona” open house, held at the organization’s living history farm in Captain Cook.

This is the fifth year KHS has held the open house, said Ku‘ulani Auld, program director for the organization.

“In a big batch, the cooling system is very important because if you don’t cool it fast, the coffee will keep on roasting,” he said. “That’s the key to the whole thing, yeah?” Growing up, he said, the roasting was typically done by the women of the house.

“I never did (this),” he said. “Growing up the job was all divided.”

Women, he said, did the housework and cooking, while the men of the house processed and packed the coffee on the farm.

Life on the farm involved daily work both outside and in, during coffee season and the off season.

“During the day, most of the time was spent on the farm harvesting or pruning or something,” said Izu. “Then after you come home, then you do what needs to be done.”

“And during the off season,” he continued, “what we do was prepare for the next season. It’s a continuous job, yeah?”

Alfreida F. Fujita also said coffee farming was a daily job for her family.

The granddaughter of a Japanese immigrant who moved to Hawaii in 1896 to work in the sugar plantations before going into coffee and cotton farming, Fujita, 89, said she’s picked coffee all her life.

“The coffee was our life,” she said. “So we all picked coffee whenever there was time. Came home from work? We’d go in the coffee field and pick coffee. That’s how our livelihood was during that time.”

Looking back, she said, she recognizes the struggle her family endured, especially given that coffee wasn’t necessarily something families could survive solely on. But it was because of that struggle that Kona coffee became what it is today.

“They believed in the coffee. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have Kona coffee today,” she said.

During that time, Fujita said, families had to diversify their skills, either by learning to weave on the side or plant other crops, so they could make some income.

At the family farm, said Izu, the family grew mostly coffee as well as some macadamia nut crops.

The macadamia nut served almost as insurance against bad coffee prices, Izu said.

“Macadamia nut was planted to supplement the income because coffee price was so bad at one time,” he said, “so a lot of farmers plant macadamia nut.”

Izu pointed out a macadamia nut tree that towered over the Living History farm, saying it too was originally planted to supplement the Uchida family’s income. The Uchida family lived and worked on the farm that eventually became the KHS Living History Farm.

The Open House also featured vendors from around Kona, showing that the region is more than just coffee.

Among them was Sandy Iwashita, founder and owner of the Kealakekua institution Sandy’s Drive In, which is celebrating its 50th year of business. The restaurant served chicken hekka to guests at the event.

Iwashita’s granddaughter, Kelsi Akahoshi, said participating in the Open House was a good opportunity to be a part of the “old culture.”

She said it’s not very common to find some of Sandy’s dishes, such as nishime, in today’s restaurants.

“It’s all things that her mother was cooking and she learned how and she’s now cooking for the people,” she said.

That gives people a nostalgic connection to the restaurant.

“When we had our 50th anniversary, a lot of people were coming in saying ‘Oh I used to come here every day after school,’ … or they mention the dish they always used to eat that we still serve,” said Akahoshi.

Many of the visitors Izu speaks with are farmers from other parts of the world, including from coffee-growing countries like Colombia.

“They come from all over the world, you don’t know who you’re going to meet,” he said. “You just exchange ideas.”

Fujita said events like the Open House aren’t just for tourists, but also give Kona residents an important opportunity to learn about their own history.

“They have to understand, this is how Kona was built,” she said.

Scott Jacob, a teacher at Waianae High School on Oahu, said he liked the event, and that learning about the Uchida family’s experiences was particularly intriguing.

“It was a pretty dramatic westernization of a family that happened in just a few generations,” he said.

He also said that the event was a chance for people to have ownership of things they consume, such as coffee.

He said people often have a detachment from where things like coffee come from and the open house helps address that.

Jacob compared it to the craft beer scene, where learning about the product is important to the people who consume it.

“You feel like you’re a part of the experience,” he said.