The largest organic coffee farm in the United States is located 3,200 feet above sea level in a mist-cooled rainforest about seven miles from Kailua-Kona. Trent Bateman, a mainland transplant who left a career in engineering to come to Hawaii, is growing award-winning Kona coffee on his farm—and breaking all the rules.
For starters, the property he purchased didn't fit the mold. Too high above sea level. Typically, Kona coffee is grown between the 800 and 2,000-foot levels. Never mind. Bateman's coffee trees are not only producing, they're yielding coffee cherries that sometimes come close to the size of small olives. Then he decided to grow organic coffee.
He and his family hand-tilled the soil, purchased some Chinese geese, St. Croix sheep and Kona Nightingale donkeys to handle weed control and provide fertilizer to replace herbicides and petroleum-based fertilizers. Today Bateman's coffee farm, Mountain Thunder Kona Coffee Plantation, has been certified organic by both Hawaii and California regulatory agencies. And that coffee is now a hot item on the market.
To find the plantation, take Palani Road (Hwy. 190) out of Kailua-Kona to Koloko Drive, about 4.5 miles out of town. Turn right on Koloko and go three miles to the third Hao Street. Turn right again and go about 1 mile down Hao Street. Mountain Thunder will be on the right. Tours are available.
