OUR FARM
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As a typical Kona day follows its routine, so do the trees. Our trees bloom from the months of January to June, producing sweetly scented white blossoms. Once the blossoms fall from the branches a small green fruit, known as a cherry starts to form. The cherry, which takes about seven months to fully develop, eventually grows to the size of an olive and turns a bright red color. Hand-picked from the trees from the months of July to January, a portion of our harvest of these cherries is sold to another Kona coffee producer who is equipped to process the fruit in larger batches. A select number of trees on the farm are harvested and processed to be included as Wolfpack Farms coffee.
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Processing, which is another labor-intensive process, is done lovingly in small batches on the farm. Cherry once picked, is placed into a machine called a pulper. A spinning wheel catches the cherries and gently presses them until the pit of the fruit, also called the bean, is released. The beans, initially covered in a slippery, sugary layer are fermented for roughly 15 hours. After rinsing the fermented beans, referred to as parchment at this stage, they are laid out in the sun to dry on hand-made racks. Depending on the weather, it can take a number of days for the beans to dry well-enough to be placed into grain pro bags (a high moisture barrier bag), where they will rest until they are ready to roast.
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Before we can roast those beans, they must be hulled. The parchment, a dry, somewhat flaky husk is mechanically removed from the beans. The beans, now green in color are hand-sorted to remove any defects. We roast these beans in small batches for freshness. Once bagged and sealed, they are ready to be shipped.
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The farm’s first coffee trees were planted in 2013 and we had our first limited production in 2014. We were proud to receive the silver medal for our first-year crop from the prestigious Chef's Choice category of 2015 Cream of the Crop competition.
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