International Jury Cupping Score

86.53

Region

Ka‘u District,
Big Island

Altitude

2,000 feet
above sea level


Estimated Lot Size

66 pounds (1 bag of 66 lbs)

Winning Bidder

NPA Inc

5As Berry farmer

In 2017, Mathias Abellera launched his 8-acre coffee farm as a retirement project in the Pear Tree area of the Ka‘u District. You could say coffee farming is in his blood; two of Abellera’s brothers already were tending their own coffee farms in Ka‘u. He planted Guatemalan Typica, Old Hawaiian Typica, and Red and Yellow Caturra from several sources — including seedlings from his sister-in-law, Lorie Obra at Rusty’s Hawaiian.

“I like coming up to my farm, and I really enjoy the processing of coffee, the drying, the soaking,” Abellera says. “All the steps to making the coffee from the cherry stage until it’s in the GrainPro bag.”

2020 brought 5 A’s first commercial-sized harvest. Its yeast-fermented, anaerobic natural Typica took 11th place in this auction.

Yeast-Fermented, Anaerobic Natural Typica

This lot is composed of harvests from two dates: November 5, 2020 and November 12, 2020. After harvest, the coffee cherries were inoculated with a wine yeast selected by Meza to highlight berry and floral notes. The inoculated cherries were submerged under water in sealed bags and allowed to ferment in an anaerobic environment. They were dried by Doug McKanna of Kealakekua Bay Farm Management/Kona Geisha Farm using a J. Estrada dehumidifying dryer. After resting for about a month as whole, dried cherries, this lot was milled and screened to 16+ size.