Māla, Atelier & Friends
Holualoa, within the Kona coffee belt, has been part of Kona’s coffee story since the late 1820s, when missionary Samuel Ruggles introduced coffee plants to the Kona district. Over the ensuing decades, coffee became a cornerstone of the local economy. Japanese immigrant families played a significant role in establishing the small, family-run farms that now characterize much of Kona, a shift that accelerated after economic changes around the turn of the 20th century. My family is part of this Kona coffee legacy; the coffee trees on our farm are nearly 100 years old by family account. When I pick coffee, the work feels ancestral—an activated part of my identity—and our ʻohana hopes to grow this legacy into a flourishing agroforest by expanding the farm to include native and edible plants.