Day 23: Kona: Iron Shoppers

December 9, 2014

We had a couple of nice options in mind for today, our day to be in and around Kona. For one, we could have headed down the Kuakini Highway, toward Holualoa, in the coffee belt south of Kona. We had slightly missed this the first time around by sticking on Alii Drive and then needing to be bailed out of the hole we got down in to.

The second idea was to hop onto one of the tours that go to the top of Mauna Kea. We had planned to do this from Hilo, but cheaped out at the last minute. The tours cost about $200 each, unless you get a discount for staying at Arnott's.

So which did we choose? Either one would have been a noble and worthwhile addition to our trip. But somehow we didn't do them. Instead we headed over to the Kona branch of Hilo Hattie, to see if they had anything for grandkids that we had missed in Hilo. Now, before you conclude that this was indeed an ignoble choice, here is a very modest defence: Hilo Hattie is up Palani Road. That is the route of the running portion of the Ironman. Ok, ok, everyone who knows this place knows it is exactly 1 block up that route. Well darn.

Palani Rd. is steeper than it looks here.

Shopping does not seem to be an Ironman section

Dodie had announced that instead of blowing our money on Mauna Kea, we could blow it at Hilo Hattie. But in fact we found that the ABC store had better value. ABC is a weird phenomenon that we remember most from Waikiki. In Waikiki, there is an ABC seemingly on every block. It's way worse than Starbucks! The chain was started in 1964 and has 64 outlets on the little islands of Hawaii. There are 37 of these store locations within a one-mile radius of Waikiki alone and consequently many of these sit in close proximity to one another. The intersection of Kalakaua and Seaside Avenue alone has four ABC Stores. You would expect such a highly tourist oriented operation to have tourist ripoff prices. But comparing to Hilo Hattie and even the local Sack 'n' Save, they turned out to be reasonable.

One of the things we were on the lookout for was coffee. This is a tricky area. First off, there has been no sample of the many I've tried here that has seemed very good at all. But putting that aside, there are a lot of categories on offer here. The prices range from fabulously high to very high. Fabulously high would be about $70 a pound. Kona Joe seems to have some of the highest prices. His claim to fame is growing the trees trellised, like grapes. And of course that coffee is single estate. Next down would be Kona (or Kau, or Kohala) coffee from some other single estate. Then there is coffee that is merely labelled 100% Kona. Entering the lower end, there is pure "Hawaiian" coffee, and 10% Kona coffee.

Among the estate coffees, there is competition for who can claim to be the greatest, and often a coffee will cite one award or another.

Next comes the question of how and when the coffee was roasted, and of course whether it is ground or whole bean.

We have just run around picking up a little of this and a little of that. Then in our last coffee store visit, Country Samurai Coffee, the owner explained that there are official grades of coffee and that the product of his farm is sorted into six grades, from "Extra Fancy" down to garbage that can not officially be labelled Kona coffee. We liked the man's dry, matter of fact personality, even the dry matter of fact way he sort of threw me out of the store. I think he felt he had already answered enough questions, and maybe my last one "How can you run the farm if you are here selling all the time?" did not go down all that well. Anyway, I did learn about the grades, and bought three of them to see if any of us back home could tell the difference. One other thing I learned was about "Pea Berry" coffee: Normally a happy coffee cherry grows fat and in processing splits into the familiar half beans. But of the land is poor, the weather bad, or the farmer poor, half the berry dies and the remaining half grows a little bigger than half, and has a rounded or pea like appearance. As to whether I would find that pea berry tastes better or worse, the farmer - Walter Kunitake - said how is he supposed to know what I will think.

Checking the web site, I found that this earthy farmer has a Ph.D, in business administration and has taught at U of Hawaii and Penn. State. As for his coffee - we will analyse it in our taste test lab back home!

For a lot more insight into Kona coffee, look at this page: www.sweetmarias.com/hawaii_kona_coffeeinfo.htm

Since our credit card did not seem quite dead as yet, we decided to give it another hit by going for dinner at nearby Splashers restaurant. Dodie got Mahi Mahi while I stuck with grilled chicken. It was very good. The Mahi Mahi had a Macadamia sauce and got excellent reviews from Dodie. Tomorrow we will return for breakfast. Pancakes will probably figure in that. Although you do not exactly read of Hawaiian pancakes as a special thing, most places seem to serve them - usually with banana or macadamia involved somehow, and tourist stores always offer various pancake mixes. We are telling ourselves we will need those pancakes to see us through possible starvation on the flight to Seattle. While wasting away on an air flight is highly unlikely, we will still be at Splashers promptly tomorrow!

We spent the rest of the day disassembling the bikes and packing them into their cases. Without racing - just doddering along, this seems to take 4 hours - one hour to disassemble each bike and one hour to pack each. Dodie suggests this could be cut by at least a quarter if we worked efficiently. Right now, she heckles while I dissassemble and I heckle while she packs the cases. Packing camping gear and souvenirs, though, can not be made more efficient, since only Dodie can understand how all the stuff can fit into our bags!

One of the many varieties of estate coffee for sale here

The coffee, in grade order, from the Country Samurai

At Hilo Hattie not all garments are bright with flowers. There are many white dresses, not too costly, that look like nice wedding dresses.

All around us corporate America is playing Christmas music. But it feels so wrong, to us anyway. This Hawaiian quilt shows a local reaction to Christmas.

Clothing in an ABC store. A close look will reveal Grampie Dodie among the offerings

Now we not only have to pack bikes and camping gear, but souvenir junk too.

From Splashers we could see paddlers in the bay

Evening approaches quickly at this season in the tropics. This again was seen from Splashers.

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