Navarro Coffee Farm is located in the remote and peaceful Moa’ula Cloud Rest Area that lies on the eastern slopes of Mauna Loa, one of the largest active volcanoes on earth. It is part of the Ka'u region of Big Island, with the farm situated at an elevation of 2,100 feet.

In 1995 Nette’s grandfather was one of the first farmers to plant coffee in the Ka’u region. With the closure of the Ka’u sugar mill farmers were given land and encouraged to grow coffee which was picked and then driven to Kona to be processed and sold. By 2010-12 the farmers in Ka’u were starting to get recognized for the quality of coffee they were producing. The biggest buyer at the time was Starbucks who set protocols for the washed processing of the coffee and all the farmers in the area processed their coffee all the same in this protocol. When it was time for Nette’s grandfather to retire Delvin, Nette’s Husband, who had spent his life around agriculture and learnt how to farm coffee at the Olson Trust stepped up to manage the 20 acre farm. Delvin who was newer to coffee farming and not tied down by protocols and traditions started to experiment with some alternative coffee processing. In 2020 Delvin submitted a naturally processed coffee from the end of the season into a cupping review and blew the judges away. This was the affirmation he needed to throw away the rule book and start pushing boundaries on what coffee from Ka’u can be.

What is red wine natural?

naturallly proccessed coffee is the oldest way of processing coffee. It involves picking the cherry off of the tree and putting it out to dry. As the coffee dries yeast and other microorganisms can make their way into the coffee cherry from the tear in the skin that happens upon picking it off the tree. This wild fermentation style can produce some great coffees but also can leave it upto chance and produce off flavors and defects. To harness the benefits of the natural style such as increased syrupy body, more pronounced fruit notes but also harness control Delvin uses commercial yeast commonly used in wine and beer making. The addition of select strains of yeasts cause them to outcompete any populations of wild yeasts around and dominate the fermentation. Knowing what organisms are dominating the fermenation also means Delvin has the ability to control the outcomes, certain yeast produce different byproducts from metabolizing the sugars and can create flavors and aromatics that wouldn’t have nessacerly been in the coffee without this step. This time Delvin used a yeast commonly used in red wine production to create more control and fruit forward flavors

Producers Name: Delvin Navarro

Farm Name: Navarro Coffee Farm / Hawaiian Monarch

Location: Moa’ula Cloud Rest Area, Ka’u, Hawaii Island

Harvest: Hand picked spring 2025

Altitude: 2100ft

Variety: Typica & Caturra

Process: Red Wine Natural

Drying Method: dried on raised beds

This is a relationship coffee started in 2021 .  We purchased 100lb at $28 per pound with 100% of the money going directly to Delvin.