Bong Brothers 100% Kona Coffee!
Bong Brothers Coffee Company is located in the heart of Kona coffee country in the town of Honaunau. Visitors to the store are often greeted by the smell of freshly roasting coffee coming from the mill or by the aroma of one of the café’s exotic vegetarian dishes.
Bong Brothers Store occupies the building that has been recognized as a landmark by the Kona Historical Society. Built in 1929 as the site of the T. Kudo Store, it was one of many small country stores that sprang up along the Hawaii Belt Road to supply what had become a thriving agricultural community. The T. Kudo store, and others like it, played an important role in the development of the Kona Coffee Market. Area farmers could count on the Kudo family to provide them with credit against their future coffee crop. In this way they could purchase the things they needed for their daily lives. Once the harvest came, the debt would be repaid either in cash or in kind. The Kudo family would process the coffee in the mill that they had built adjacent to the store.
In many ways the business continues to operate in the tradition of the original owners. When the Bong Brothers took over the property in 1979, they made it a priority to restore both the mill and the store. The coffee that our customers drink is pulped, dried and milled right on the premises. Locals, including many who still are coffee farmers, and tourists alike can count on the Bong Brothers Store to provide the best in Kona Coffee as well as other necessities. Tom Bong custom roasts all of the coffee himself in small 20-pound batches. Linda Bong who runs the store and café is renowned for her vegetarian cooking and her fruit smoothies. The shelves are always well stocked with a wide variety of health foods, organic local produce, cards and gifts items.
The store is located on the makai (ocean) side of the road between mile 103 and 104 on the Hawaii Belt Road (Hwy. 11). The store is open Monday through Friday until from 9 am to 6 pm and Sundays from 10 am to 6 pm.
Article source: http://bongbrothers.com/
Kona Coffee History
Coffee was first introduced to the island of Hawai’i in the 1820s and here it found its niche. The rich volcanic soil combined with an ideal balance of sun and rain made the Kona coast the perfect place to grow coffee. Not only did these conditions make coffee growing easy, it was soon discovered that the beans produced in Kona were so superior in quality and flavor that they became known the world over as the best. Since that time coffee become firmly rooted in the soil and in culture of the Big Island as well.
It is believed that coffee was originally found in Ethiopia. However, credit is owed to the people of the Arabian peninsula for brewing up the first cup of coffee from the fruit of the Coffea Arabica plant almost 1000 years ago. Coffee became an important crop in Hawai’i in the 1890s when the world market price for coffee rose dramatically. The first coffee farms were huge plantations. When the coffee prices fell not 20 years later, these huge plantations dissolved into small five-acre parcels that landowners leased out to tenant farmers. The tenant farmers were immigrants who had come to Hawai’i to work in the sugar cane industry. They were an ethnically diverse group but the majority were Japanese and Filipino. The coffee growing lands were isolated and on rough terrain. The farming of the coffee was could be intense and tedious. The heavy bags of coffee were maneuvered around the coffee land by donkeys and this is why donkeys remain a revered object of Kona cultural worship. These early coffee farmers are often referred to as pioneers. Many of the farms have remained in the same family for generations and the majority of Kona coffee remains the product of these small family farms.
The market for coffee has always been volatile and still is today. However, the demand for gourmet coffee gives Kona Coffee the edge because there simply is not a finer coffee in the world.
Article source: http://bongbrothers.com/
