If you want to learn first hand what it takes to produce award winning coffee, or just want to spend a leisurely time on a beautiful coffee farm overlooking Kealakekua Bay, then your invited to come visit Pele Plantations’ BrocksenGate Estate in Honaunau, South Kona, on your next trip to the Big Island. All tours must be scheduled ahead, since we are a ‘mom and pop’ operation with just Gus and Cynthia most days. For us, any day is a possibility. Send us an email ( ) ahead at or call us at 1-800-366-0487, to let us know what date looks good to you. Then after you get here and your schedule becomes focused, call us to confirm and to get driving directions from your hotel to our central farm.

Kealakekua Bay from the lanai


Ripe, Red Cherries weigh down the branches in the fall


Blossoms ('Kona Snow') cover tree branches during the spring


"recoger café solo muy roja"
(pick only very red coffee)


On tour you may pick coffee yourself


Tane Datta picks an early round of red.


Head Bean Gus demonstrates air roasting


A stop in the Macadamia Nut field where our flock of sheep eat the weeds


Chute to the pulping mill


Cherries dropping into the pulper


About 20 lbs. of cherry in the basket


Roasting for monthly Coffee Club is 'pau' (Hawaiian for done)


Head Bean's Hot Rod - a 1933 Ford Dump Truck

Here’s what you will see:

The view - As soon as you step out of your car you’ll see our spectacular view of Kealakekua Bay from our elevation of 1350 ft. At ocean level sits the ancient Pu’uhonua O Honaunau, a place of refuge erected in the 1500's, to house prisoners behind a 15 ft. wall of lava. On a clear day you’ll see the Captain Cook Monument, an obelisk erected by the British on one-half acre, at the place where Cook discovered the islands in January 17, 1719 and was slaughtered on the same year for being dishonest to the tribe people, allowing them to think he was a god, which he was not.

The coffee trees - Our plantation is 8.5 acres, 200 Macadamia Nut trees occupy 4.0 acres, coffee covers 3.5 acres with 1200 coffee trees, leaving one acre for our house and coffee processing structures. The species of coffee tree planted here is Coffea Arabic Kona typica , identical to the original trees discovered in Ethiopia around 640 AD. You well learn the difference between this specialty tree and the inferior Robusta, grown in Brazil and Vietnam and Caturra trees grown on other Hawaiian islands.

Blossoms to Cherries - Kona coffee trees bloom from January through March, in a series of ‘rounds’ of flowers at two week intervals. Small white flowers cover the tree and are known as Kona Snow. In April, green berries begin to appear on the trees. By late August, exactly seven months later, the fruit begins to turn red and is called "cherry" because of the resemblance of the ripe berry to a cherry fruit. Only when the cherry are completely red should they be hand-picked. Since there are several flowerings, harvesting will also take place several times between August and January, seven months after each flowering. A large mature tree will produce 20-30 pounds of cherry and it will take 7 pounds of cherry to make one pound of roasted coffee.

Picking. Pulping, Drying - As you walk through the coffee trees, you’ll have the chance to strap on a picking basket and begin picking ‘only the really dark red beans mui roha. You’ll learn how sugar, called mucilage, appears only when the beans turn red. The beans, inside the cherry skin develop in different sizes (Extra Fancy, Fancy, Kona No. 1, Prime, and Peaberry) which can be sorted using screens through which only one size passes at a time.

Within a few hours of picking, the cherry is run through our Penagos Pulper, to squeeze the two seeds out of the red skin. The slippery seeds are then placed in a fermentation tank overnight, to give natural yeast the time to ferment the sugar off the surface. After rinsing, the beans are spread to dry on the deck of our traditional hoshidana, which has a rolling roof to cover the beans in the event of rain. It takes 7–14 days to dry the beans to an optimal moisture level of between 10-13%. From here, the beans are stored as "pergamino" or parchment. The parchment is stored at 65 F and 65% humidity so they do not loose color or become moldy.

Macadamia Nuts and Sheep - If time permits, we love to show visitors our macadamia nut trees, and crack the shell open to taste. The flower resembles a bottle brush. After bee pollination mac nuts develop in clusters that fall to the ground when they are heavy and ripe, about five months later.. Our flock of sheep will follow the visitors around hoping that nuts will be cracked for them, since their teeth are not strong enough. Each seed has two coverings - the outer green husk, and the inner golden-brown shell. Commercial factories use machines to crack the husks and shells. On tour we use lava rocks.

Roasting - The last stop on every tour is our roasting room. Here we operate both large and a small Sivetz air roasters. Sevitz Air Roasters, unlike barrel roasters, tumble beans in a column of very hot air,. finishing the process in 10 minutes. YOU'LL HAVE THE CHANCE TO CHOOSE YOUR ESTATE AND YOUR ROAST. We hope you'll agree there is nothing like taking Kona coffee home that is so aromatic and fresh.

We looking forward to your arrival at our farm. Feedback from years of tour guests says that our tour is "the highlight of their trip to the islands". There is no charge and no requirement to purchase coffee.

Cynthia and Gus Brocksen