Coffee and Chocolate in Hawaii

Coffee and chocolate are popular on Hawaii Island. They are even celebrated with annual festivals and the harvesting and coffee bean preparation can be experienced on trips to coffee plantations in Kona and Ka’u.  Living in Hawaii we have come to appreciate having the best cup of coffee and dark chocolate.

There is a lot of advice about the best way to brew coffee.  We have heard everything from “just grind it and add hot water” to “steam pressure it in a car-sized  espresso machine”.  Our strategy is to buy the best beans and freshly grind them right before brewing with alkaline water.

We recently replaced our old coffeemaker with a more highly rated Melitta thermal coffeemaker. We really like this new coffee maker.  It has three settings for brew strength and though it takes longer to brew with the highest strength, the resulting coffee is very strong and yet not too acidic. The carafe lid has a thumb spout so we can pour out coffee without having to unscrew the lid and let air in and the flavor out.  Having the hottest coffee on those chilly 77 degree winter mornings in Hawaii is a real treat.

Local stores do not always stock  Melitta coffee filters, so we order them in bulk.  It is a relief to have enough filters for 600 pots of coffee available.

We prefer smooth, low acid coffee. Though we love the local grown Kona and Ka’u coffees, they are very expensive at about $28 or more a pound which is not affordable at the rate we drink coffee.  Fortunately, we are able to buy  excellent coffee beans online for $6.50 to $10 a pound.  We use a Burr Grinder to grind our coffee beans rather than a “spice mill”.  The finer grind gives the coffee a deeper flavor.

We think  a piece of extra dark chocolate makes our coffee taste even better, but extra dark chocolate bars are hard to find in Hawaii.  We order chocolate bars by the dozen on Amazon Prime so we don’t pay for shipping. They arrive wrapped in a special frozen covering and last us months.  

Drinking the best tasting, fresh brewed coffee with dark chocolate every day makes living in Hawaii even more wonderful.