Fun and Educational Tours on Maui 2020

Continuing and starting with the fun and educational tours at Maui Chocolate and Coffee Tours hosted at Kupa’a Farms! You might of thought we forgot about our loyal followers and blog readers…we most certainly did not! We have been so busy, but not that busy to pass on writing about our fun loving activity updates for Maui and Hawaii.

Maui Chocolate and Coffee Educational Tours

Hurray! Hurray the Kupa’a chocolate has arrived for our fun and educational tours! It is available only on a very limited basis…yup, you must come on a tour to sample it. The first batch, processed at St. John’s kitchen in Kula,  was made in an “old world” fashion. That simply means nibs were added to give it that rustic feel and flavor. Maybe because Kupa’a grows coffee too, folks seem to think it has hints of coffee on the initial and mid palate. It definitely has lovely roasty and toasty notes that one may interpret as coffee nuances.

Last year’s cacao harvest yielded about 17 pounds of roasted and winnowed nibs…not a whole lot of chocolate! Maybe 80-90 2oz chocolate bars, for sample only. Our enthusiasm will carry it far!

A chocolate sommelier, Cyndi Clement, is coming soon to expand on her extensive chocolate repertoire by learning about cacao farming, harvesting and processing, and ultimately sharing her knowlege by leading chocolate and coffee tours. Please stay tuned to mauichocolatecoffee instagram and facebook @mauichocolatecoffeetours updates. Book a tour so you can meet our visiting chocolate sommelier!

We also have another cacao/chocolate and coffee enthusiast joining our team. We’ll save more about Molly for later! She has many farming and arborist skills that she brings to the table, so we are thrilled to have her coming on board soon as well!

Drying cacao and coffee beans

Wholly cacao!

Maui Coffee at Kupa’a Farms

Kupa’a’s award winning coffee will more than likely become a little scant this year. Their coffee is currently only available at the farm and on the chocolate and coffee adventure. Yes, the coffee berry borer (cbb) has landed on our lovely Valley Isle, Maui. Due to coffee farms on the Big Island being abandoned, coffee gone wild, and an abundance of fruit with no one to harvest, this little parasite piggy backed it’s way to Maui. This is quite sad for the many coffee growers on Maui.

The good news is that Kupa’a Farms has enough coffee currently for Maui chocolate and coffee tours’ chocolate and coffee adventure! Another big hurray!

Seeking other fun Maui activities?

In the seeking-other- Maui fun activity category, Hawaii’s humpback whales are still one of Maui’s biggest attractions, and that isn’t only due to their size! This year has been the best whale season that many of us have seen in years…biggest in shows are moms and babies. This lends to vastly different whale behavior and activity, so go out on your favorite boat to see for yourselves. We always have fun on Island Rythms, but we also experienced Boss Frog’s Calypso whale watch and had a great time.

Maui Ocean Center added a new exhibit within the last year or so, and it is awesome! The experience is a tad short, but the 3-D whale encounter’s makes up for the time. This is definitely a must do, and especially for you kama’ainas who haven’t been to the Maui Ocean Center lately!

Also coming soon….

Vanilla beans! Growing, processing, and curing vanilla beans is no easy feat. First off, they must be hand pollinated.  The flower is only open for one day for pollination and the window is 4 – 6 hours.  After it is successfully pollinated, it takes approximately 9 months for the fruit to ripen. The vanilla is hand harvested, and then placed in a hot bath of about 120 degrees for a 4 minutes. It is taken to be dried for 4 – 6 weeks. Finally it is wrapped an placed in a dark place for an additional 3 months. Now, you may have a better understanding as to why vanilla is so expensive!