The Coffee Lover’s Guide to Maui: Kaanapali Coffee Farms

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Having sampled some of Maui’s best known coffee brews, it was time to go see where the stuff grows — and try some fresh out of the oven farm.

Ka’anapali Estate is the only coffee farm on Maui, so their coffee is very aptly named Maui Grown Coffee. And yes, Maui Grown Coffee may not be as brand-famous as the Big Island’s Kona. But it’s just as delicious.

If you love coffee and find yourself on Maui some day — be sure to visit Ka’anapali Estate. You can do a self-drive tour of the farms, at no cost and at your own pace. Here’s a photo sampling of ours:

Our first stop was Maui Grown Coffee’s company store.

It’s as quaint on the inside as it is on the outside, with shelves upon shelves of coffee and a storage-slash-packaging room that takes probably half the space in the house. You can order Maui Grown Coffee off of their website (shipping is $12), and it looks like plenty of people do!

One of the owners was in the store and gave me a brief lesson on coffee roasting. Some beans are roasted with the shell, others are not. You could actually see the difference here:

During all this, the five-pound bag of Lava Flow — the blend they roast for espresso — was being filled up especially for me, freshly roasted:

Having picked up our goodies, we headed to the farms, just 4.5 miles away. Again, this is a self-drive tour, which means you’re free to drive or walk around for as long as you like! I don’t know whether many people don’t know about this, or just don’t care about coffee all that much (why??), but we were the only car there during our whole tour.

We followed the map we were given in the store (you could pick one at the very entrance, as well), which also has information on all their different kinds of coffee and which parcels they grow on. If you’re interested, you can even buy a couple acres of farm land and build yourself a nice little gigantic house and watch the coffee grow, I guess, as you drink your morning coffee:

We drove around on the roads, then walked a bit on the red soil and enjoyed the wonderful views. It was an overcast day and the air felt very humid and heavy. [I’m not sure if the humidity is permanent in that part of the island, possibly it’s the reason why coffee grows there? Questions for our next visit!]

During your tour, you are not only allowed but encouraged to try the coffee cherries. Pick the red ones, as the purple are already over-ripe. They taste sweet and refreshing:

Some people may or may not have had a bit too much fun eating coffee:

Confession: I was actually trying to pose like this woman. You think I have a chance at ending up on the three-leva note any time soon?

[Leva=Bulgarian money. This is a 2 leva bill from my childhood, no longer in circulation.]

Workouts:
Today:

With the desperate real housewives of New York City.

Yesterday:

With the housewives of D.C. These women are just…. [bleep]. But hey, whatever makes the time go faster!

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