Keurig Platinum

Jstas

heiney9 wrote: »

Huge difference between real Kona and Kona blend (taste and price). My parents go to Hawaii once every few years and they always bring me back a few pounds of real Hawian Kona and sadly I'm on my last pound and it's almost gone.

Go to that link I posted. They are having sales now. $25-$27 a pound for regular stuff. Shipped to your door. Buying it in person in Hawaii, depending on where you get it, it's roughly the same prices. Maybe $5 a pound cheaper. I found that website from a business card. A dude selling coffee out the back of his pickup truck at the Aloha Bowl during the Flea Market they have there. He had sacks and sacks of fresh roasted beans, a scale, a generator, a vacuum packer and a grinder powered by a deep cycle battery. You tell him how much you want and if you want it ground and he'd go to work. It was about $18 a pound back in 2000 so prices still aren't that bad. And honestly, not much more than Folgers and stuff you get in the store now.

But the dude was putting the plastic packages in silk screened burlap bags and tying it with a brown ribbon with the business card attached. The website was on the card one year and I started going there. Been pleased ever since. Every time after that, I'd head down to the flea market the first day I was there and grab a pound just for the hotel room and just order stuff for home when I got home. I used to get stuck there for months at a time and the swill they have in hotel rooms sucks in comparison.

For comparison, I've gone to local specialty super markets and stuff just to see. 100% Kona is anywhere from $80-$238 a pound. That's nuts.

heiney9

I may do that John since the cost is still within reason. Only problem is I don't tend to drink hot coffee in the Summer, but that is a way off yet.

H9

mantis

heiney9 wrote: »

Huge difference between real Kona and Kona blend (taste and price). My parents go to Hawaii once every few years and they always bring me back a few pounds of real Hawian Kona and sadly I'm on my last pound and it's almost gone.

I've had Kona from WaWa , I never had it anywhere else. It's a unique tasting coffee that I tend to favor. At WaWa it say's Kona not a Kona Blend but I'm now wondering if it's a blend. They don't charge anymore if you want that over the house blend or any other brews they have.
I'm hoping to find a good Kona K cup maker , sounds like I'll have to use the Make my own option if I want a better Kona cup.

Thanks for the advise.

heiney9

It's a blend then if it's the same price as the other coffee. Pure Kona coffee is expensive, much more than a regular blend. I'm not saying the blended stuff doesn't taste good, just that pure Kona has a different flavor.

H9

Jstas

mantis wrote: »

I've had Kona from WaWa , I never had it anywhere else. It's a unique tasting coffee that I tend to favor. At WaWa it say's Kona not a Kona Blend but I'm now wondering if it's a blend. They don't charge anymore if you want that over the house blend or any other brews they have.
I'm hoping to find a good Kona K cup maker , sounds like I'll have to use the Make my own option if I want a better Kona cup.

Thanks for the advice.

The Wawa coffee is not required by law to be labeled a blend since it's already brewed. If you are buying beans, raw or roasted, ground or whole, there are laws governing labeling. You can't get the Kona coffee in packages from Wawa (or at least you couldn't, dunno if it's changed) otherwise they'd be forced to label it a blend and it's percentage of Kona beans.

BTW, I just went to Wawa's website and the first thing that pops up when you hit the "Coffee & Beverages" section is this:

www.wawa.com



I don't doubt that it has a different flavor and that you like it. I'm just saying that the flavor isn't really attributable to any Kona coffee. It's likely due to a different grade of bean that isn't the same as the rest of their Colombian based beans.

If you want real Kona coffee, go to the site I linked to.

Mine will be here tomorrow.

bmbguy

One of the reasons Kona is expensive is that its production is restricted by regulation in Hawaii. Visited Greenwell Farms on the Big Island a couple different times, and brought home green beans to roast myself. Just like any other crop, sometimes coffee grown in the same location is good and other times, not so good.

The first time I brought home the (expensive) Kona beans (2000), I was relatively unimpressed. The second time ('07), the coffee was superb.

Kona coffee is good, but IMO, unnecessarily overpriced. Other coffees from around the world can be found that are just as good, but at much more reasonable prices.