Kona Kaffa Champagne Natural — Noelani Farm
Tasting Notes
Lime zest and ginger blossom aromatics.
Raspberry, delicate and tea-like in the cup.
Roast: Light
Region: Hōlualoa, North Kona, Hawaiʻi
Producer: Noelani Farm
Altitude: 750 masl (2,500 ft)
Variety: S.12 Kaffa
Process: Champagne Natural
Extremely limited: only 3 lbs of this lot exist, offered in 4oz bags. This will be our last Kaffa release for some time. After this lot was produced, most of the Kaffa trees at Noelani Farm were lost to fallen trees during Hurricane Lala.
Variety — S.12 Kaffa
Kaffa is the region of southwest Ethiopia where Coffea arabica originated, and the place the word "coffee" comes from. In 1952–1953, P.G. Sylvain collected seeds from plants in several areas of Ethiopia, including Kaffa, and sent them back to the USDA. Some of these varieties, like S.6 Cioiccie, we've offered before from Coffea Diversa.
In 1955 the USDA distributed Sylvain's collections, along with dozens of varieties selected by plant breeders in other countries, to coffee regions around the world. CTAHR in Kealakekua, Kona, received seeds of S.12 Kaffa at that time. The variety showed resistance to coffee leaf rust and interested breeders in the 1960s and 1970s as rust spread across the Americas. Leaf rust didn't reach Hawaiʻi then, but University of Hawaiʻi researchers found that S.12 Kaffa showed some tolerance to root-knot nematodes, which had become a problem reducing yields in Kona.
Despite these strengths, S.12 Kaffa has never been planted commercially anywhere in the world.
A 15-Year Search
I first became aware of S.12 Kaffa in 2008, while searching the coffee collection at CTAHR for varieties with the potential for excellent cup quality to plant at a then-new farm called Hula Daddy. It was the only variety in the collection from southwest Ethiopia, the same region the Geisha variety came from, and I felt it might have potential.
The trees in the original Kealakekua collection were in rough shape and producing few cherries, but a replica of the collection grows on Oʻahu at HARC Maunawili. In 2009, when I traveled to HARC to collect seeds of SL34, Mokka and Laurina (Bourbon Pointu) for Hula Daddy, I also collected a handful of S.12 Kaffa seeds. Hula Daddy decided not to plant them. I planted six seedlings in a shady spot at Rusty's Hawaiian farm in Kaʻū, but wild coffee sprouted up around them and it became impossible to tell which trees were the Kaffa.
I didn't get to taste this variety until 2017, when Juli Burden sent me a sample harvested from the single tree at Maunawili. Maunawili is a very low-altitude site, yet the sample showed excellent complexity and many of the flavors I associate with other Ethiopian landrace varieties: citrus, ginger and flowers.
I asked Juli for a few seeds from that tree to try planting once again. Once they sprouted, I entrusted four of them to Kraig Lee of Kona Farm Direct, who by then was growing plants for farmers of many of the varieties I had selected for Hula Daddy years before: SL34, K7, Laurina and Mokka. When those trees fruited, I asked Kraig to plant some at Noelani Farm next to the Geisha trees he was planting there. In 2021, 50 Kaffa plants went in at the very top of the farm, at 2,500 ft.
Leaf rust finally arrived in Kona in 2020. Since then, the Kaffa plants have appeared resistant to the strain of rust we have here. They are also nearly as productive as Catuaí and far more vigorous than Geisha. But how would the variety taste at high altitude?
In April 2024, we finally found out. It did not disappoint. The lime zest and ginger I had tasted before in this variety, and often find in other Ethiopian landraces like Sidra, were there. The mouthfeel and acidity were excellent. It was a coffee as special and unique as I had hoped.
Since then we've been slowly collecting the harvest every few weeks. We finally have enough of this variety that a handful of people will have the opportunity to taste it. It's a coffee I've waited 15 years to share.
— Miguel Meza
Origin — Noelani Farm, Hōlualoa
Located in the Hōlualoa area, Noelani Coffee Farm is one of the Kona District's highest-elevation farms, at 2,500 ft. The first plantings, from 2018 to 2020, were of the K7 variety, and 1.5 acres of Geisha were added in 2021. Noelani's washed K7 scored 95 points on Coffee Review.
The first Geisha harvests began coming in in November 2023, in tiny amounts every few weeks. The cool, cloud-shrouded, perpetually misty climate at this altitude is more like Boquete, Panama, than most other farms in Kona. Noelani Geisha has consistently scored 96-97 points on Coffee Review: "High-toned, tropical, exquisitely balanced. Orange blossom, cocoa nib, guava, young ginger, cedar in aroma and cup."
Process — Champagne Natural
This coffee is processed using our Champagne Natural method, developed in 2019 and refined through ongoing experimentation.
Cherries are:
- Sorted and sanitized
- Fermented in a bioreactor with selected wine yeast
- Sugars are metabolized into acids, alcohols, and aromatic esters
At the end of fermentation, the fruit becomes crisp, tart, and lightly effervescent.
The coffee is then:
- Dried at controlled temperatures in a humidity-controlled drying room
- Rested in cherry before milling
Where our washed Kaffa showed cherry, vanilla and almond, the Champagne Natural adds raspberry and lifts the variety's lime zest and ginger into a brighter, more delicate, tea-like cup.
Explore more rare Kona varieties: Kona Laurina Champagne Natural and Kona Geisha Rosé Washed, or browse our Geisha Coffee Collection.