It’s Aloha Friday here on Sprudge, and that means no work til Monday. It also means it’s time to take a look at the latest location from Honolulu Coffee Company, purveyors of fine Hawaiian-grown specialty coffee. This new shop is to be the brand’s flagship, and will be home to a cafe, bakery, roastworks and QC lab. So whether you’re in Honolulu on vacation or you’re lucky enough to be a local stuck in paradise traffic, you will want to give this new cafe a visit.
Seriously, we would give anything to be in Hawaii right now. What a great place.
As told to Sprudge by Kyle Evans.
For those who aren’t familiar, will you tell us about your company?
Honolulu Coffee is based out of Honolulu, Hawaii, with a focus on Hawaiian-grown coffees. Our cafes are located on Oahu, Maui, the “Big Island” of Hawaii, Japan, Shanghai, and Guam.
Can you tell us a bit about the new space?
Our new 9,000-square-foot space will house our operations for roasting and quality control, plus a bakery and café. We have installed a pre-58’ Probat UG22 with the help and expertise of Marty Curtis and John Sanders. Our bakery, under direction of head chef Curtis Horka, will be offering a breakfast and lunch menu specially curated for this space, in addition to our already amazing lineup of pastries and desserts. The new space is primarily to showcase our dedication to the seed to cup process. Taking time to show each step of the process from our farm managers Romaro and Ryson, to Row Aczon, our Director of Coffee Quality, training on bar. Every step will be represented to its fullest!
What’s your approach to coffee?
Honolulu Coffee’s approach, simply put, is quality. Where Honolulu Coffee is unique is in that we have an opportunity to showcase a true “seed to cup” experience. Honolulu Coffee owns two farms on the Big Island of Hawaii on the south side of Kona, only a 30-minute plane ride from our upcoming flagship on Oahu.
Any machines, coffees, special equipment lined up?
We enlisted the expertise of Marty Curtis and John Sanders to refurbish our 1944 Probat UG22. We will have a new Victoria Arduino Black Eagle espresso machine and a couple Nuova Simonelli Mythos grinders. Also, in house will be our cupping room, sample roasting, and quality control. We hope to start leading everything from SCAA classes to housing small group Q Grader classes. We will have a gift shop to display retail and roasted Hawaiian coffee. The most exciting thing might be that we have partnered with Dr. Chifumi Nagai from The Hawaiian Agriculture Research Center to transplant 12 coffee trees, 6 different varieties, into our garden!
What’s your hopeful target opening date/month?
The build-out is still in progress so, TBD!
Are you working with craftspeople, architects, and/or creatives that you’d like to mention?
The overall design is from Honolulu-based Philip White Architects LLC. Also, Dr. Nagai with HARC has been absolutely amazing in her work here in Hawaii and we are truly lucky to have had her help in choosing the coffee trees we will be transplanting. We are working with Marty Curtis and John Sanders who installed our roaster. They have been great in their creativity with the space and the unforeseen hurdles we have had to deal with. Finally, we have amazing partners in crime at Kaldis Coffee!
