It's easy for us to get lost in our farm-grown Kona coffee. We grow it, we take pride in its world-class quality, and then we get overjoyed to share it with our guests. But the truth is that our non-Kona coffees take just as much pride and passion to produce, and today we'd like to give one of our blends the spotlight: Lokahi.
The History of the Blend
Spoken in Olelo Hawai’i, Lokahi refers to harmony and balance—and these words encompass what we are as a company and what best represents the coffee experience we want to share with you.
Every ‘ono (delicious) coffee blend begins with the selection and intent of each type of coffee. By keeping harmony and balance in mind, our knowledgable roasters first select the green coffee components with care to make sure we have consistent flavors in the blend. Because the coffee blend is roasted to a medium profile, processing it brings out its characteristics of sweet and chocolatey nuttiness, along with subtle fruit from its rotating guest components.
These flavor notes developed by our roasters has led Lokahi to be our signature house blend loved by many of our customers. Lokahi was designed to taste great as espresso and deliver consistent quality whether at our cafes or in your home set-up. In our cafes, we serve Lokahi as the espresso in our drinks, as drip from our batch brewers, and as Toddy cold brew!
Lokahi refers to harmony and balance—and these words encompass what we are as a company and what best represents the coffee experience we want to share with you.
Quality, Quality, Quality
Almost every day, we go through the process of coffee cupping; a sensory experience through which we evaluate coffee. All of our blends are subject to thorough and routine quality controls for taste and consistency. We evaluate our blend and single-origin lineup of coffees through this process to ensure the quality and consistency of both the roasted coffee and raw components are up to standards. But Lokahi gets a little extra attention, or an extra cupping bowl, or an extra roast profile to see what roasting profile changes can be made to bring out the best flavors ... And we don’t stop there.
Our Roasting and Quality Control team regularly calibrates our Lokahi roasts using our cafe espresso grinders and espresso machines, tasting espresso at different parameters of time, taste, and dilution. We then pass that information on to our cafe teams to ensure we are creating the best possible Lokahi experience at all of our cafes.
What does this mean for you? When you get Lokahi in your cup, you are drinking the product of rigorous attention to detail from start to finish.
A Blend that's More Than a Blend
Like all of our blends, the components of Lokahi change throughout the year based on harvest schedules and crop freshness. Generally speaking, there is always at least one coffee in Lokahi that represents a long, fruitful relationship with our producing partners. Some examples include:
- Brazil San Antonio Estates: A co-op consisting of family owned farms utilizing sophisticated farming, harvesting, and quality control techniques. We've had a relationship with them since 2017.
- Guatemala Monja Blanca: A co-op consisting of smallholder farms in the volcanic Atitlan region of Guatemala. We have been sourcing coffee from them for over 12 years!
Relationships are vital to the way we operate, and great coffee starts with these great relationships. Lokahi is no different. With each iteration, there is a years long story to be told and the importance of this blend goes well beyond the final taste.
Relationships are vital to the way we operate, and great coffee starts with these great relationships. Lokahi is no different.
Beyond Lokahi
Coffee is a funny thing. It’s an everyday, ubiquitous, oftentimes mindless part of daily life, but behind every cup is a long story of human connection, hard work, and dedication. Lokahi is a part of the much larger coffee story, but it’s one that has meant the world to us and has come to represent so much of our philosophy and identity.
The next time it’s in your mug as drip coffee, or a latte, or as an espresso shot, know that there’s a story unfolding before you, and enjoy your moment of harmony and balance with it.
SHOP LOKAHI BLEND
