One of the most common questions people ask about Kona Coffee is “Why so expensive?!” 3 reasons. Listed backwards, talk-show style.
#3. The Kona Coffee Belt is very small
The Kona Coffee Belt is a tiny bit of land less than 1 mile wide and around 30 miles long. Only coffee grown in the Kona Belt can be called Kona Coffee.
To give you perspective, Rhode Island is 1045 square miles. The Kona Belt is 40 square miles. The tiny size of the Kona growing region means that the amount of coffee grown there, compared to the rest of the world, is small. Only 1% of the coffee grown in the world is Kona Coffee.
#2. Volcanos, Plus Island…
Kona Coffee grows 800-2500 feet up the side of the biggest active volcano in the world. And, it’s on an island. Which means everything has to be shipped in by ocean barge. There’s no mechanical processes, and no harvesting machines. Everything has to be done by hand. Every single Kona bean is picked by hand. Which leads to…
#1. Labor. Not at 3rd world prices.
One pound of Kona starts as 8 lbs of fruit. An entire coffee tree yields about 15-16 pounds of cherry. That means our coffee pickers pick an entire tree, by hand, to make 2 lbs of roasted Kona Coffee. That doesn’t begin to factor in cleaning, grading, drying, roasting or packaging.
Ever been to a coffee farm in Kenya, Ethiopia, Indonesia, or any other coffee country? Coffee farmers there do not make American minimum wage.
It’s not so much that Kona Coffee is “expensive” — it’s that in most coffee producing countries, there is no minimum wage and most coffee producers are forced to live in poverty. Kona Coffee is American-grown, from the only state that produces coffee. We think that’s something you can feel good about!
And, Did You Know?…
A 7oz bag of Kona will make 5 or 6 pots of coffee, depending on how strong you brew it. Which means an entire pot of Kona Coffee costs under $4.
And, if you pour 5-6 hefty mugs from a pot of coffee, that’s under $1 per cup. Compare that to the stuff that comes wrapped in a paper cup. Don’t you deserve such a modest treat? Of course you do!