Hawaii: Fish Collarbones and Chocolate (10.25.25)

Old Hawaii is all about agriculture--sugar and pineapples.  New Hawaii has lost its sugar plantations and produces pineapples only for local use.  It has, though, become a big exporter of premium coffee and of macadamia nuts.  On October 24, 2025, our last day on the Big Island, we toured a coffee and cocoa farm and processing center, and we then ate at a prime symbol of the New Hawaii--a famous chef's gourmet restaurant.

"You should be a stand-up comedian," Dave told our guide, whose one-liners kept our tour laughing.  "I am," he said.  "This is my day job."  Just when I think I would be bored to death with one more farm tour, I am fascinated and charmed by what I learn.  Hale Cocoa Farm researches and improves varieties of coffee and chocolate, as well as processing its own and neighboring farmers' coffee and chocolate beans.  It also has a display garden of many types of produce grown in Hawaii.  Our guide showed us taro plants, which are a staple of Hawaiian cuisine, as well as the cuisine of other Polynesian islands.  The root is used for poi and the leaves are used to wrap meat and vegetables for roasting.

Hawaii also grows turmeric.  The root is bright orange inside, and is the spice that turns Indian curries yellow.  Turmeric juice is one of the latest health food crazes.

Our guide showed us coffee berries growing on coffee bushes.  He passed around fresh coffee for most of our tourmates.  Dave and I tasted fresh hot chocolate.

Hale Cocoa Farm is constantly testing new hybrids of coffee and chocolate, to see which will produce the most and best quality of beans.  Dave and I got lost in South Kona upcountry after our tour, and we drove past farm after farm, growing coffee and cocoa.  Some of those farms sell their beans to Hale Cocoa Farm and/or consult with it about the latest varieties of plants.

Cocoa beans grow in soupy liquid inside a big pod.  Cocoa is processed by drying and fermenting the beans.

At the end of the tour, our guide gave us a taste test.  He passed around pieces of dark chocolate bars, made from beans from different farms on the Big Island.  He then asked us to describe their  tastes.  Although I love to both eat and cook, I have no future as a cocoa bean tester.  I really couldn't tell which bars were more floral or bitter or had hints of vanilla.

Inside the Hale Cocoa Farm cafe and gift shop, we could taste test the finished products from the beans we saw in the field.

The north shore of the Big Island is my favorite place, but South Kona also has its charms.  Our house plants from Utah grow as big bushes in South Kona, and there is a permanent cloud over the mountains above the coast, where coffee and cocoa farms produce in the cool, moist rain shadow.  In less than an hour's drive from the fancy resorts on the coast, Dave and I were on rutted, gravel roads winding along the mountainside amongst coffee farms.  The towns in South Kona are small and funky, with small cafes and shops renting surfboards or offering fresh fruit, antiques, and tattoos.

Roy Yamaguchi is known for his fancy restaurant in Honolulu.  He also has an outpost in fancy King's Village in Waikoloa

The restaurant was elegant, from its modern Hawaii art to its unique menu.

We tried the house special--collarbones of a Hawaiian fish, cooked in a Korean sauce.  I didn't know fish had collarbones, but that didn't diminish my enjoyment!