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More About Kula Estate...
Kula Estate Coffee was established by Carl and Melinda Leix in 1990. Currently under the third generation of direction of Brandon Kaipalaoa Martin, grandson of Carl and Melinda Leix, and Lily Solano. Brandon shares the back story of the family's farm from his perspective:
"My Great Great Great Grandfather bought a large parcel of land back in the day on Omaopio Road that stretched the length of Piliwale Road (Google maps gives a good visual) for cattle. As time went on the land was divided up and passed on through family members in which my Great Grandfather received 10 acres of. He split the 10 acres into four 2.5 acre parcels for my grandmother and her three brothers. As most other distant relatives began to sell off their land, my grandma began building her new home and farm. My grandma and grandpa began this adventure by farming pigs for the new hotels' luaus and made ends meet. They raised my mom and uncle on this property and we're smart enough to add two cottages for additional income when times were tough. As the pig industry became more and more complex with viruses and excessive antibiotics they decided to call it quits. Their entire lives they worked full time jobs, farmed, and raised their family and so they needed to find a new crop to farm. They discovered Coffee while on a vacation in Costa Rica. They noticed the large fields and the abundance of the crop on the trees and we're intrigued. When they returned to Maui they did all the research necessary, reaching out to the College of Tropical Agricultural at UH and began farming coffee! They planted the first 200 tree orchard in 1990 and another in 1993. They soon found out how labor intensive this new crop was and stuck with it. They created Kula Estate Coffee and sold their bags to hotels, local stores, even Longs. As they got older and retired from their full time jobs they continued to farm their coffee and that helped support them through retirement. In 2006 they finally decided to throw in the towel and actually enjoy retirement after 30 years of farming. They moved across the US and rented out the farm to another coffee farmer. To alleviate stress they hired a property manager to take care in their absence. Soon enough they were getting call after call about complaints and issues and this carried on for quite a few years. After frustration hit it's limit they took a trip back to Maui in 2011 and we're absolutely heart broken with the state their once beautiful home was in. Houses destroyed from bad tenants and no upkeep or maintenance. The farm was half dead, coffee trees three times their normal height and full of rotted beans. They even said there was black mold on almost every tree. It destroyed them and so they decided it was time to let go and put the farm on the market. At this point I was in my last year of college on Oahu and heard of the news. I immediately took a trip to Maui to see how bad it was and was blown away. I called my grandma the next day and struck a deal with her, my girlfriend Lily and I would move to Maui after graduation, find jobs, and run the farm for her. After some time to think she agreed and we were off on a new adventure. We took over the farm in January of 2014 and got to work. Immediately, we started pruning back trees, repairing and installing new irrigation and learning the ins and outs of farming and farming practices. We basically started from scratch and put together a complete plan to revive this awesome farm and turn it into an organic, regenerative and sustainable system. We are now well on our way and the trees are as happy as I remember when my grandparents were here. We do not spray chemicals or use synthetic fertilizers, only compost, food waste, and fish scraps from our local aquarium. We get wood chips from upcountry tree trimmers and card board from various warehouses. We now consume more waste than we put out which in my opinion is HUGE!! As for the coffee itself, all our trees are of the Kona Typica variety. They have naturalized and evolved to our particular climate over the past 27 years. Our production increases year over year as our system for pruning and feeding is finally starting to settle in. We now have a small crew that handpicks every bean and we sort and pulp it all ourselves. We then ferment and wash our beans before laying them out to sun dry. Each stage of the process we sort through the beans to remove any defects so that our end product is of the highest quality. It's a ton of work but completely worth it in the end knowing that our farm will stay in our family at least for two more generations and hopefully longer."
Order by 5/14/2017 to get this box!
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May 2017 - Kula Estate
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