Maui Coffee News

The first Maui Coffee Festival will take place this Saturday at The Shops at Wailea. The Maui Coffee Association together with the Maui County Farm Bureau have been planning this event for months.
Greg Stille, president of the Maui Coffee Association and president of the Hawaii Coffee Association says there will be tents near the fountain featuring coffee plants, coffee roasting and tasting of the winning Maui coffee growers from the Hawaii Coffee Association event which took place at the Maui Tropical Plantation in July.

This is an exciting and challenging time for coffee in Hawaii. MauiGrown is emerging as a world-renowned coffee just as Kona is fighting the coffee borer which has destroyed over thirty percent of their crops. Essential measures must be taken to destroy the coffee borers and also prevent the spread to other islands. This involves diligent removal of coffee cherries falling to the ground and incineration of them. The coffee borer gets into the cherries and can lay eggs and multiply creating a disaster for our agriculture industry. In discussions with James “Kimo” Falconer, of MauiGrown Coffee, Greg said they have talked about the need to treat trees with an anti-fungal product which the coffee borer doesn’t like and also getting to the wild trees deep in the valleys which is a mind boggling task.

Greg said it was difficult to get Maui Coffee Farmers to open up their farms to visitors during the recent event due to fear of spreading the bug. Currently, anyone who has visited a Kona Coffee Farm must remove that clothing before traveling. He held a welcoming event at their two acre organic coffee farm Piliani Kope Farm in Launiupoko.
Greg has traveled to Kona for the monthly meetings as well as twice a month to Honolulu to participate at the legislature in the communication on Ag House Bill 280 (the self certification bill) and a bill to prevent Ag theft and Ag counterfeiting. There’s a lot in the works and please follow Maui Country Farm Tours for all the exciting events to come. They’re hoping to have monthly events about coffee including students, pastry chefs, bringing food and agriculture to the forefront of Maui Tourism.
If you want to learn about the coffee industry in Hawaii and taste some of the most delicious coffee on the planet come to Wailea, Saturday August 4, 2012.

See http://www.mauiweekly.com/page/content.detail/id/510090.html