What Is the Best Kona Coffee?

Most Kona Coffee Is Great, but One Is King

True Kona coffee is as rare as it is exceptionally good. Even blends that contain relatively little Kona coffee typically have a distinctive taste that set them apart from the masses.

The crowning jewel of the class, though, is peerless. It’s 100% pure Kona of the highest grade.

There’s a lot more to be said in this fascinating story. The Kona region and its coffee deserve all of the attention they get, and nothing is more deserving than the best of the best.

What is Kona Coffee?

To fully appreciate the significance of the king of the Kona realms, it’s necessary to at least have a basic understanding of Kona and its coffee.

Kona

All of Kona, Hawaii is a tropical paradise. It’s a prominent and beautiful region in the western part of the Big Island. Yet there is particular part of Kona that stands out, because it has ideal conditions for growing one of the world’s finest coffees.

Its Soil

Past volcanic activity has blessed the soil with a variety of nutrients that positively impact it’s fertility. Nutrients such as nitrogen, magnesium, potassium, and sulfur tend to be abundantly present in the soil of Kona coffee farms.

Additionally, the composition of the soil promotes optimal aeration and hydration. The roots of the coffee plants thrive and effectively absorb the plentiful nutrients from the soil, which in turn lead to crops of outstanding quality.

Mother Nature’s Magic

On slopes well above sea level (with some elevations exceeding 3,000 feet), Kona coffee grows in a privileged environment. The wet season coincides with the timing of the coffee crops so that the cherries can develop to their full potential.

The passing days regularly alternate between sun drenched mornings and refreshing rains later in the day. The slopes are perfectly situated to shield the coffee plants from potentially damaging winds.

Kona Coffee Beans and Classifications

Identifying the best Kona coffee is in reality a two part process. One is mainly objective, and the other is somewhat subjective.

I’ll explain the aspects of the most straight forward of the two parts first. More specifically, The first part pertains to the terms used to define and describe some important distinctions (terms that are independent of the more subjective differences among brands).

Kona Coffee Beans

A question I often hear is, “what is peaberry Kona coffee? It’s an important question that I will be answering very soon.

There are two types of Kona coffee beans. Typical coffee cherries contain two beans (seeds) each. In Kona terminology, beans from these typical cherries are type I. They are also the most common, by far.

Type II Kona beans are the peaberries. In general, coffee beans are known as peaberries when there is a single coffee bean per coffee cherry.

Kona Coffee Bean Grades

Each of the types has a distinct set of grades. Different terms are used for grades of each type, so that there is no duplication of identifiers among the two types.

In other words, each tier of type I Kona beans has a name that doesn’t correspond to the name of that same tier for a type II Kona bean.

For example, the highest grade for a Kona type I bean is Kona Extra Fancy, while the top grade for a Kona type II bean is Peaberry Number 1.

Each grade is assigned based on several criteria, among which bean purity can be considered the most significant.

One Zero Makes a Big Difference

In the world of Kona coffee, there are heavyweights and lightweights. The heavyweights with the true knockout Kona flavor are those that are 100% Kona.

Because of the limited supply of Kona coffee beans, not all brands sell 100% Kona coffee. Some sell Kona blends, which need only contain 10% Kona coffee.

Over the years, I have learned that people tend to be content enough with Kona blends. I have also witnessed a pretty serious obsession with 100% Kona coffee. To me, all of this is perfectly understandable.

Being pretty obsessed myself (and having searched all over in all kinds of imaginable ways), I can’t help noticing the many different terms that are generated by the auto complete capabilities in searches.

Not everyone refers pure Kona coffee the same way, though there are some typical and representative phrases that I’m used to seeing. Phrases like 100 Hawaii Kona coffee, buy 100 Kona coffee, best 100 Kona coffee, and Kona coffee 100 pure are among them. The words and the sequence vary a bit, but they all have one thing in common.

People may generally like the blends, but they tend to be absolutely crazy about Kona coffee in its purest form. For many, it has to be 100 percent Kona, 100 percent of the time. Maybe I pay particular attention to this because I happen to like 100% Kona so much myself.

Regardless, the demand for pure Kona is simply amazing. It’s far above the zeal for pure forms of any other kind of coffee I have ever known.

The Best Coffee from Kona

Before I get into the details, I have to provide the proper context. As I had mentioned earlier, there are both objective and subjective elements in evaluating and determining what exactly the best coffee from Kona might be.

For those who rely more predominantly on the objective factors, the list of candidates might not even include my top choice.

Likewise for those who will only consider the brands with the most total awards or with the most prestigious awards.

Personally, what my taste buds tell me overrides any “Kona extra fancy” or “1st prize winner in the coffee olympics” labels on a coffee bag.

I have tried many Kona brands, and there is one that I consider the best. It’s the one I will be mentioning in the conclusion of this article.

Yet I would like to add that, if I considered that my own personal preference didn’t coincide with the preferences of a fair amount of other people, I would not feel compelled to recommend my preferred brand.

Also, I haven’t tried every single Kona brand. I’m not implying that the brand I will be mentioning must be the absolute best among every possible Kona brand.

Having mentioned all of these things, what I can confidently say is that I and many others agree that Royal Kona is the best among all of the Kona brands we have tried.

Why Many Consider That Royal Kona Is the Best

There are so many ways that people express their awe after drinking this coffee that it’s hard to entirely summarize all of them. I’ll limit myself to a relatively small but fairly representative set of superlatives so you can have a general idea.

A pretty large contingent considers Royal Kona to be the final destination. They loved it once they tried it, and now they won’t even consider drinking coffee from any other brand. It’s the ultimate Kona.

Some believe that Royal Kona is “a taste of paradise.” I would agree that is pretty appropriate, both for Kona and its coffee.

Others view Royal Kona as an icon of excellence. One even sees it as “the Lamborghini of coffees.”

I think you likely get the point by now, but if you want to browse other Royal Kona reviews there are hundreds more.