The 2024 Kona Coffee Cultural Festival celebrated the best of Kona’s world-renowned coffee this past week, culminating in the highly anticipated Kona Coffee Cupping Competition.
After a rigorous evaluation of the finest coffee, four Kona coffee farms emerged victorious, including a tie, earning the award of title of Kona Coffee Cupping Champion.
This year’s competition brought together 80 of the region’s top growers, showcasing their exceptional beans to a panel of expert judges from around the world. Over two days, judges assessed the coffees for fragrance, aroma, taste, and overall balance.
Winners were announced Sunday at UCC Hawaii Farm.
Thoughtful decisions about variety or cultivar selection and how the harvested cherry is fermented, pulped, dried, etc., greatly impacts the flavor profile of the coffee. The exciting part of this competition is tasting how growers capture their careful, innovative attention to produce coffee that shines in the cup — producing some of the highest scores and most complex coffees this competition has seen to date.
Divisions for this year’s competition were treated a little bit differently.
The Kona Heritage Division coffee entries were cupped separately from the Creative Division entries. The decision to separate these divisions on the cupping table honored the Heritage Kona Profile with a little more attention to the delicate and fine distinctions of the un-inoculated, washed Typica entries.
Creative Division is reserved for entrants submitting a coffee that is grown in the Kona district but otherwise does not meet the criteria of the Heritage Division. The Kona Creative Division is open to any variety, processing technique, cultivation method, co-ferment, inoculation, etc. This division had one Award Category: 100% Kona Creative Award awarded to the top three scoring coffees in this division.
This year’s record-breaking score was an 87.55, a tie in the Creative Division, and a very close runner up from the Kona Heritage Division scoring an 86.69, the highest this competition has seen for the Heritage Award since 2018.
The winners are:
— 100% Kona Heritage Award First Place: ‘Ohana Martin Farm
— 100% Kona Certified Award First Place: Darnall Estate Kona Crown Coffee
— 100% Kona Creative Award First Place: Hula Daddy Kona Coffee and Uluwehi Coffee
“I applaud all Kona coffee producers, including the 80 entries into this year’s competition,” said Brittany Horn, founder and co-owner Pacific Coffee Research and Cupping Competition chair. “Whether producing Heritage style coffees or getting wild and funky with the coffees these brilliant farmers are bringing to market, all of you are leveling up with every passing year that I have had the great honor to serve the Kona Coffee Cultural Festival Kona Coffee Cupping Competition. Well done!”
The Kona Coffee Cultural Festival, now in its 53rd year, celebrates the vibrant heritage and enduring cultural significance of the Kona coffee industry.
