Visitors and guests

Visitors and guests was Originally Posted on July 24, 2004 by lavarock

My Sister and her friend are on vacation here on the Big Island. Sis sold her house in 6 hours and decided to see what Hawaii was all about.

Unfortunately, things did not work out well enough for her to stay this trip, but I think she may and up here soon enough anyway.

We visited the black sand beach and saw the big green tuurtles. We drove by the coffee farms and they walked the property many times. I even got them to cut some trees and do some needed work here. Unfortunately, not enough.

We took the whirlwind tour around the island (she rented a jeep and did all the driving). By the time we saw the waterfalls, the towns, the photo stops and Hilo, she was ready for the volcano. We hiked to the end of the road, then across the lava, like many others, venturing across the the area where lava flows beneath, and were treated to a spectacular sight of lava pouring into the ocean! Cascading lava and cooler ocean water make a massive steam cloud!

The whole way back to the farm, I appear to have slept

As for the coffee business… it is having its ups and downs.

I was ready to put the website online and found the credit card module was timing out calling the gateway. I spent days working on it to no avail. I am resorting to capturing the data and manually entering it. It will be difficult debugging that with the site live and will have to create a test site now.

The web sites [i]should[/i] be up online in a day or so. I know, you have heard that before, but [i]this time[/i] I think I really mean it

I have some neat news to report.

On July 17th, I am 20 of my neighbor coffee farmers displayed our coffees and offered them up for a public testing competition. The 3 categories were Organic, Estate and Open. I was in Open because I don’t own the farm yet, etc.

There were two sets of judging, resort chefs and the public. In the public taste test, pele’s Passion won GOLD MEDAL! The story is here [url=]http://westhawaiitoday.com/archive/2004/07/19/LocalNews/259286.html[/url]

This is indeed an honor and I am humbled by it. I tasted all 21 coffees and can report that each one was different. They each had a unique taste and unlike an official “cupping” where each would be prepared alike; these were roasted and brewed to the farmers likes.

I can tell you that on that particular day, with those particular guests, they picked my coffee and I thank them. Any other day the results might have differed. As an aside, my Sister bought coffee from my competition The event was so well received that we will hold another one again soon!

I want to also take a moment to thank my friends who have contacted me recently to see what is up. It appears that a delay in writing this blog must make them think I have fallen into the volcano. NOT TRUE! (At least, not yet!)

Aloha for now!