Sep 27 2009
Maui Wowee
I am leaving on a jet plane….
Okay and now I am back again
Why is it that the week you go on vacation ends up feeling like only a weekend? Perhaps this is a overstated sentiment, but still that is what our (the girlfriend and I) whirlwind week in Maui felt like. It seemed like as soon as we jumped in our rented mustang convertible and headed off to Lahaina, we had to turn right back around and drive it back to the airport to get on the plane and go back to Oaktown and back to work.
If it wasn’t for the 300+ pictures, the suitcase full of coconut bras and grass skirts and the depleted checking account, I could swear that we were hardly there at all. Okay,while I am spending most of this blog bitching about how short vacations seem, I must admit that we had a whole lot of fun on the Valley Isle. We created a lot of nice memories, got some tanning in and even dipped our toes ( and rear ends) in the warm ocean water.
For those who have never been to Maui, there is a whole lot fun stuff to do than just sitting around and baking in the sunshine. The road to Hana was an adventure, Iao point was inspirational, The Eco adventure Zip line was a rush, as was Ufo Parasailing, even the full body massage from Zensations was worth it, oh and I cannot forget the magnificent luau at the Hyatt Regency that featured a kick ass fire dancer . But of course, for me, the highlight of the trip happened to be our visit to not one but two actual coffee plantations.
Maui Grown Coffee…
Okay, so everybody knows about Kona coffee that is grown over there on the big island of Hawaii and how smooth (and expensive) it is. Maui, however, has been gaining a reputation for producing some pretty good coffee in its own right. While the coffee farms tend to be at a slightly lower elevation than the big island, the coffee itself is nice and earthy and above all much more affordable then the primo Kona stuff.
Another nice thing about Maui grown coffee, is that there happens to be a large coffee plantation that you can visit right across the street from the famous Kaanapali Beach.Suffice it to say that I was tickled absolutely pink when the nice guy at the Maui Grown Coffee Company (a store located by the smokestack in Lahaina) told me that I could actually just drive up there and take a up close and personal gander at actual coffee being grown
We had just come back from a tour of the Maui Tropical Plantation which also featured coffee but only got to see it fleetingly as we rode through on a little tram. So I was actually salivating at the idea of being able to walk through fields of coffee plants with ripe and ready cherries dangling before my eyes.
Okay, I am pretty sure that we were probably supposed to view the fields from the “viewing platforms” but I could not resist walking through the fields themselves and getting all up close and personal with the plants (just take a right at the little red truck). My uber patient girlfriend also obliged me on this and even took a large number of great pics of the plants like the one posted above.
I felt like I was in heaven and wished I could just move right into one of the luxury homes that they were building on he property, but unfortunately we did not have 2 million conalis in out bank account having spent it all of coconut bras.
The nice guy at the Maui grown coffee company store was also more than obliging to show me the whole coffee growing, picking, separating, hulling, and processing process that their coffee went through and was also more than happy to sell me a big ol’ 10 lb bag of certified Red Catui green coffee beans that happened to be harvested on this vary same plantation.
The store itself only features one pound bags of the green stuff, but if you ask the guy if he has anything bigger , he will bring you the back where the bigger bags are. He also informed me that they actually have a annex in the port of Oakland where I can go pick up bigger bags (hundred pounders and such) of the stuff if I was so inclined to do so. After sampling a few different varieties there, I decided that the best choice would be the Red Catui which had a very appealing taste and aroma. Maui Grown Coffee Company’s best known varietal is the Maui Mokka, but I wanted something that I could actualyl roast in my Behmor without too much trouble, and the Red Catui also seemed to taste a bit better.
Anyways, I will save that review for later
Aloha and Mahalo baby.
When I saw the title of the blog post I thought it was about Maui Wowee, the Hawaiian grown marijuana. You’ll probably get lots of search engine hits from how-to growers on the subject. As to your vacation being too short - aren’t they all?
I did hear that marijuana was Maui’s number one cash crop. Nothing like a bong hit in a cup of Maui Mokka to get your morning started. Also, ironically, i am working on a novel which takes place in an alternate universe where coffee is illegal and grown covertly much like the maui wowee is today.