Ugh! Avoid 10% Hawaiian Coffee
I recently travelled to the Hawaiian island of Maui, both to take (as far as I'm concerned) a much-needed vacation, and to visit farms there. This would be my third trip to Hawaii, and my first to Maui. If you are ever visiting a coffee-producing region of the world, I certainly suggest visiting a farm to gain an eye-opening perspective on the origin of coffee, and to pick up coffee as farm-fresh as you'll ever find it.Read: Maui Origin Trip ReportAfter visiting the MauiGrown Coffee company store and visiting their coffee orchard, it was off to Costco to pick up supplies for the week. We decided to venture down the coffee aisle just for the fun of it. I shouldn't be surprised, but shown above is a picture of what we saw...10% Maui Coffee Blend.[ad#Google Adsense - use me]I wrote about this recently, in response to the amount of 10% Kona coffee or "Kona blends" that I was seeing in the market.Read: Don’t Buy 10% Kona CoffeeHere is the jist of it. Hawaiian coffee is esteemed, and that means that you will need to pay a premium price if you want the real thing. Different vendors of coffee want to give you the impression that you're getting this premium coffee, but cannot sell it in a retail environment without charging an amount that a retail customer will not likely pay. So instead, they blend it with something else, and you believe you're buying premium coffee for a standard price.To quote Jeff Ferguson, vice president of MauiGrown's company store, "When they say 10% Maui (or Kona), what they're not saying is 90% Mexican."If you want the experience of enjoying Hawaiian coffee, be prepared to pay a premium and buy it 100%, and from a source that you know would only sell you fresh coffee, like a local coffee roaster. And, please check out the link above where I wrote on this same subject with regards to the proliferation of misleading Kona blends. Hawaiian coffee is excellent coffee, and I suggest enjoying it in full, or at least staying away from a coffee that is barely Hawaiian at all.