Kona Coffee FAQs-Roasting, Sourcing, and Shipping
Find answers to common questions about our 100% Kona coffees, roasting schedule, shipping times, and sourcing practices.
Coffea Diversa Dilla Alghe Honey
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Roast: Light
Country: Costa Rica
Region: Biolley
Producer: Coffea Diversa
Processing: Honey
Altitude: 1250-1300masl
Taste:
A delicate cup with vibrant acidity. Subtle notes of melon, malt, clove, and rambutan. Hints of orange and black tea in the finish.
Coffea Diversa
Gonzalo Hernandez has amassed the world’s largest private collection of coffees trees: more than two hundred species, botanical varieties, mutations and cultivars that grow on his exotic Costa Rican “coffee garden”, Coffea Diversa. His collection includes some of the rarest in the world -- coffees many have neither heard of nor tasted.
Of each variety Gonzalo has only a few trees, and his coffees are sold in small 10 kilogram bags to knowledgeable roasters and friends around the world, first come, first serve. We first visited Coffea diversa and met Gonzalo in 2010 and we’ve been looking forward to sharing his coffees ever since.
While there are hundreds of varieties that have been collected from coffee's homeland in the mountains of Ethiopia, only a handful of these have ever been commercially cultivated. Only the Geisha/Gesha and Java varieties are currently planted in any significant scale. Many others exist and Coffea diversa has a collection of dozens not being grown anywhere else.
Dilla Alghe
A wild Ethiopian landrace found close to the southwestern Ethiopian town of Dilla Alghe. This coffee is characterized by being a tall tree, wide branch spacing, wide branch-bud spacing. Young leaves or tips are reddish in colour. Large, long beans. Its yield is very poor. The plant is very susceptible to diseases.
Dilla Alghe was collected by Major A.R. Melville from Dilla Alghe, Southwestern Ethiopia and brought back to his home in Kenya in 1942 after returning from his service in Ethiopia during World War II as part of the British East African Forces. He would later go on to be Director of Agriculture in Kenya and also introduced the Dalle variety at the same time, while others returning brought back to Kenya varieties such as the Rume Sudan variety.
In 1953 the USDA imported this variety from Kenya (February 16. PEI:205408) and along with dozens of other selections (like the now famous Geisha/Gesha variety) from Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania. USDA then sent them to the then newly created coffee germplasm collection at CATIE(Centro Agronomico Tropical de Investigacion y Ensenanza) in Turrialba, Costa Rica. (Introduction T.2742) Because some selections from this plant showed tolerance to the Coffee Leaf Rust Disease. It was later sent to other countries collections for further study. Brazil in 1953, and Colombia in 1954. It was also sent to the Rust research Center CIFC in Portugal where they selected plant 128/2 for rust resistance. This variety like most Ethiopian Land races was never commercially grown due to its poor yields and weak disease resistance compared to the Robusta based Timor-Hybrid selections being developed at the time.
Today only a handful of farms grow this variety, and to our knowledge Coffea Diversa was the first to grow it commercially.
What Is 100% Kona Coffee?
100% Kona coffee refers to coffee grown exclusively in the Kona district of Hawai‘i Island — a small, volcanic region
along the western slopes of Hualālai and Mauna Loa. The combination of mineral-rich soil, afternoon cloud cover, and gentle trade winds produces one of the world’s most distinctive coffee terroirs.
To be labeled “100% Kona Coffee,” every bean must be grown within the Kona district and meet strict Hawai‘i grading quality standards. Kona coffee can be made from different arabica varieties, but Kona Typica — a heirloom lineage — remains the region’s most common and traditional cultivar.
If you’d like to explore more Kona coffees, you can browse the full collection here: Browse the Kona Coffee Collection .
About Kona Coffee
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Kona coffee grows on the volcanic slopes of Hawai‘i Island, where mineral-rich soil, afternoon cloud cover, and slow cherry maturation create a naturally sweet and balanced cup. Our Kona Classic Medium is sourced from high-elevation farms and hand-harvested for clarity, smoothness, and elegant sweetness.
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Yes — this roast is Authentic Kona coffee made exclusively from North Kona district-grown coffees, never blended. Our Kona coffees comes from small farms at the highest altitudes in the region.
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Medium roasts highlight Kona’s signature profile: gentle sweetness, soft citrus, toasted almond, and milk chocolate. The result is a balanced, approachable cup ideal for everyday brewing.
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This coffee shines in pour-over, drip, and French press. Use filtered water just off the boil and a medium grind for maximum clarity and sweetness. If you are looking for a Hawaiian coffee for espresso use we recommend our Hawai‘i Island Blend
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Kona is the highest labor cost coffee region in the world. Wages for farm workers here are 15-20x higher than almost all other coffee producing countries. Limited and expensive land, hand-picking, and high production costs create a naturally small supply each year — especially from high-elevation farms like those we partner with.
Company & Facility
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We roast and fulfill all of our coffee orders in Hilo, Hawai'i.
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We roast in small batches using a Diedrich IR12 roasting machine.
Satisfaction Guaranteed
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We source an array of the top specialty coffees worldwide that appeal to an array of different palates.
If at any point you have difficulty brewing, or just appreciating one of our roasted coffees, no problem. Shoot us an email within 5 days of receiving your coffee and we'll help you find the correct brew settings for your coffee, or give you a credit (minus actual shipping costs) on your next purchase. Yep, we're a Satisfaction Guarantee coffee company!
Please note, our Satisfaction Guarantee only applies to U.S. orders of roasted coffees, and you must contact us within 5 days of receiving the coffees. Credits do not include actual shipping fees, which may be different from posted shipping fees.
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We roast and ship on Monday/Wednesday/Friday.
Coffees
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Our commitment to you is to serve exceptional, fresh-roasted coffees. And part of being exceptional means roasting before the flavors inherent in the green bean begin to fade, which happens over time.
Like apples and pumpkins, coffee is a seasonal agricultural product and each country has a different harvesting cycle in which coffees are at their peak. If we were to insist on serving a single origin all year long, the flavors in that coffee would be noticeably better one half of the year over the other. So the reason you no longer see that coffee you loved is because the optimal season has passed. For more on seasonality in coffees, see this blog post here.
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Hopefully so. If it was a popular product or we receive customer requests, we will make every attempt to bring it back. However, please note that coffees from a certain producer may not taste the same year after year.
If you loved a coffee and no longer see it listed, shoot us an email and ask us what is similar. We’d be happy to provide a personal recommendation.
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We aim for balance and completeness along with differentiation and distinction. You shouldn't need to be a professional coffee taster to tell the coffees a part, so, when we’re selecting coffees, we want them to be distinct from each other.
We avoid ”one-trick pony” type coffees, such as Ethiopians with great aroma but no body or acidity, or coffees with good aroma and acidity but lacking sweetness. These elements, which are often reflections of the growing conditions, are harmonized through good roasting.
And, obviously, defects — even subtle defects — influence our selection. Since we live and work at origin, we’re sensitive to coffee defects like “past crop”, pulpy, and naturals that border on over-ferment. With naturals, we’ll only carry these when great examples are available.
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Our perspective on roasting is similar: we seek balance and distinction. To expect that a coffee is “best” when roasted to some pre-determined degree (i.e. only light roasting or only dark roasting) is analogous to thinking that each person would look best in the same outfit, or each coffee should be grown in the same way. We believe it’s our job to discover the roast degree which best highlights outstanding qualities in each coffee.
