Kona Coffee FAQs-Roasting, Sourcing, and Shipping
Find answers to common questions about our 100% Kona coffees, roasting schedule, shipping times, and sourcing practices.
Sumatra Abyssinia Wet-hulled Light Roast
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Roast: Light
Country: Indonesia
Region: Simalungun
Producer: Back Bay Estate
Processing: Wet Hulled
Altitude: 1400masl
Tasting Notes
Geranium blossoms, cane sugar, white grapes, Apricot and tobacco. A Sumatran coffee with an Ethiopian heart.
An exceptionally clean Wet-hulled coffee this Ethiopian cultivar still wafts of it's roots: floral aromatics, sweet grapes and tea. a very sweet and full-bodied cup. one that aims for elegance over outright power.
A very unique Sumatran coffee. Single variety lots of any type are very hard to come by from this origin. Typically several varieties are scattered about in fields. This coffee is mostly processed as a natural by the farm. We featured the natural process version of this coffee in 2024. For this year we asked them to produce a special lot for us in the classic Sumatran wet-hulled style to taste the effect of the processing on a coffee we were already familiar with. Our lot was processed from cherries harvested in March and April 2024.
Abysinnia Variety
In 1928, coffee researcher PJS Cramer travelled from Java to Abyssinia (today known as Ethiopia), and returned with new varieties of coffee seeds to plant. One such variety proved both exquisite and resilient to the debilitating leaf rust disease: Abyssinia. The variety was later planted in Gayo, in North Sumatra, and it can still be found on some farms there today.
Selections from Abyssinia trees eventually made their way to Cameroon from the island of Java. Further selections of the plant were made in Cameroon and released as the 'Java' variety which in the decades since has become popular with growers around the world: Nicaragua, Colombia, Laos.
A pure heirloom variety, Abyssinia is slow growing and produces a single annual harvest of exceptional quality coffee fruit. The large bean size and elongated shape are the trademarks of this variety.
Back Bay Estate
Lisa & Leo’s Organic® Coffee was established in 2010 By Lisa and Leo Wiriadjaja. A lifelong dream of having a coffee farm turned into an ambition to start a company and grow a business based on their personal values that would guide every aspect of the work, the land and the products produced from the land. Located in Simalungun, North Sumatra, the Their organic coffee farm: Back Bay Estate and gardens is complimented by a Macadamia Orchard, a wet mill facility, an ECO Tourism Farm Stay Lodge connected to a Coffee Processing Education Center and the protected Siamang Forest.
All of their Arabica coffees were started from seed and are grown organically and Biodynamically at elevations of 1400 to 1500+MASL.
On a trip to Gayo in 2012, Leo was fortunate to find a crop of Abyssinia owned by a third generation farmer who was willing to part with seedlings that had volunteered under the mature trees. The seedlings made it back to Simalungun in his backpack and 55 trees survived. The timing of the 2012 visit was not during harvest season, so there were only green cherry. In 2013 Leo returned to harvest cherries from the trees for propegation. From those seeds they were able to plant an additional 100 trees. Thanks to this growers generosity, Back Bay Estate now has a healthy crop of Abyssinia. This is a special crop for them and they have since increased the crop by taking cuttings from two mother trees and propagating these into trees each year for the last 3 years. They now have 280 trees producing around 500lb of specialty grade coffee per season.
Thank you Lisa and Leo for producing this 20kg (44lb) lot of very special coffee for us!
They typically process this variety as a natural. Harvesting ripe cherries and drying them on raised beds for 28-35 days. Covered to protect them from the elements and reduce UV.
These trees only produce around 500Lb of coffee each season. Almost all of which they sell to their customers within Indonesia. We are grateful they were willing to share 44lb of this special coffee with us.
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.
