Tours of Bay View Farm

Tours are no longer operational.

Locally owned and operated Bay View Farm is a proud producer of 100% pure Kona coffee. When visiting Kona we invite you to a free tour of our complete processing facility as well as a complimentary cup of Kona coffee.

Harvest Season

The majority of Kona coffee is harvested between the months of July and December.

An average picker on these farms can pick between one hundred to three hundred pounds a day depending on the time of season and is usually paid by the cherry pound for this effort.

Milling Kona Coffee

When the coffee arrives at Bay View it is always inspected for freshness and color before it is sent down the chute into the coffee pulper.

The process known as wet milling occurs at the end of each day when all the cherries have been brought in. A cherry pulper is basically a metal cylinder with stripping knobs that squeeze and remove the husks from the coffee beans.

The husks are sent out of the mill and into a waiting truck that will take it back into the fields for use as fertilizer.

After a soaking process the beans are carted out onto drying decks to be sun dried.

The green coffee beans are raked every hour throughout the working day for about a week to allow it to dry out.

The dried coffee is scooped into sacks ready for the next stage of the process.

Making The Grade

After the parchment is removed from the green bean the coffee undergoes a stringent grading system that classifies the beans according to size, weight and number of defects. Two different machines perform two different steps.

The first step sends the Kona coffee through the classifier machine which sorts the coffee according to size.

The second step sends the Kona coffee through the gravity machine which sorts the coffee according to weight.

The grading process is important because it is a product assurance program that is designed to maintain the integrity and distinction of quality in the different grades of Kona coffee. The primary grades of Kona coffee include Peaberry, Extra Fancy, Fancy, #1, and Prime.

The graded green coffee is usually bought and sold by roasters as is any commodity and kept until roasting which should be done as near to point of sale as possible to assure freshness of product.

Bo, the Roaster. Be it 100 lbs or so he can roast the coffees so consistently.

At Bay View Farm this is no exception as all of our coffee is fresh roasted on the farm using a gas powered San Franciscan coffee roaster. The roasted coffee is kept in its whole bean form and packaged in air tight bags assuring its freshness for months to come.

Storing the roasted beans whole also keeps them from becoming stale and grinding the coffee just before brewing always yields the best results.

Taking The Tour

When touring Bay View Farm and Mill visitors are able to see first hand how the entire process of producing Kona coffee is performed. If you are interested in this free tour of Bay View Farm we are open daily from 9am to 5pm and can be reached by following the simple map on the front page.