As Kauai Coffee Company prepares for an expansion in both growing and production, the heart of the team is its roastmaster, Mike Shimatsu. Born on Maui, Shimatsu was raised on Kauai’s Westside and enjoys his off-time as much as his
As Kauai Coffee Company prepares for an expansion in both growing and production, the heart of the team is its roastmaster, Mike Shimatsu.
Born on Maui, Shimatsu was raised on Kauai’s Westside and enjoys his off-time as much as his work with coffee.
“I am a Waimea boy and when we are not coaching sports we are hunting and diving, either in the water or in the mountains,” Shimatsu said.
Shimatsu is a “Licensed Q Grader,” which is a professional cuppers accreditation from the Coffee Quality Institute. To earn this rating, a Q Grader must demonstrate expertise with green grading, roast identification, coffee cupping, sensory skills and triangulation cupping — a total of 21 tests in five days.
There are a few thousand Q Graders worldwide but only around 10 in Hawaii and Shimatsu is the only one on Kauai. His expertise helps maintain the reputation of the nation’s largest coffee grower with more than 4 million coffee trees on 3,100 acres.
Kauai Coffee Company LLC, converted former McBryde Sugar Company orchards to coffee in 1987. It is now part of Massimo Zanetti Beverage, USA, Inc. They have more than 50 full-time workers along with seasonal workers and are looking at the possibility of a larger roasting facility and orchard expansion within five years.
TGI: Is cupping hereditary or learned?
It is not for everybody, but if someone’s willing to learn and put in the effort and the time then cupping can be learned.
I always was focused but now I am in a totally different place. I can honestly say that my taste buds can detect things some people just cannot.
A lot of this came from going through the cupping experience here, but I also fine-tuned the senses even more by going through the Q Grader’s course and the rigorous licensing process. By eliminating sight as a factor, you have to trust your senses to make a decision and it’s tough and scary at that level, but when you make the right decision you know you are on to something.
I wear a lot of hats and enjoy focusing on the roasting operation but I really enjoy cupping coffees. It is a challenge but when you can blindly assess a coffee and critique it and you know you nailed it on the head, it’s a good feeling.
TGI: How did you get your start in coffee?
I have been at Kauai Coffee for 23 years. I started in the electrical department and then in the factory and was a supervisor in the processing plant. I worked in the dry mill and wet mill and then for a few years in the lab and quality control departments where I started on cupping and grading in the early 1990s.
I started roasting coffee when the visitor center opened in 1998. That first year we did about 21,000 pounds and by the third year we were doing about 75,000 pounds and all on a 25-pound roaster. We outgrew the visitor center and now we are doing over half a million pounds of roasting a year.
Now I spend time focusing on quality. I have to cup our coffees and understand the qualities of coffee types, roasting profiles and the characteristics.
This experience made me take on the challenges to become certified in quality control and the steps and procedures of the roasting plant. I know when the operators roast the coffees. Their roast logs have set points to ensure that a certain temperature is reached at a certain time for the roast profile they are trying to achieve.
TGI: Do the Kauai orchards produce a unique tasting coffee?
Kauai seems to produce a more neutral coffee by growing on a lower elevation. Some people prefer that as opposed to higher elevation coffees where the coffees tend to be more acidic and where the maturation process is slower because of the elevation.
Some customers prefer coffees with lower acidity because it tends to be easier on the stomach.
The concepts are the same around the world but the differences are mechanical harvesting that we do on Kauai versus hand-picked like they do with the smaller farms.
We look at the varieties we like as a whole and pull a certain amount to the side to run in our small processing plant. This allows us to be more creative and offer additional products.
We try to bring out the different characteristics of a particular roast using all of these different mixes and market them through our visitor center and mail order. Over the years we didn’t have the volume and now we do.
We make over 100 products and are at a point where we are expanding. We are over 500,000 pounds a year and are looking to do a million with another roaster and updates to the packaging equipment. Eventually we want to incorporate everything into one building so we don’t have to move the coffee around.
We control ‘from tree to cup’ and that is what makes us so unique. It’s a collaborative effort from all of the departments and it has been working quite well.
TGI: Is there an evolution of the bean as it’s grown on Kauai?
That is a good question. This is the time of year that the guys in the field, and the guys in the factory, meet to discuss which varieties are doing well and what we want to grow more of next season. We like that we are all a part of a decision-making process that allows us to be creative and help the business continue to grow.
TGI: Does roasting enhance flavor?
We try to bring out the characteristics of the bean itself through the roasting process. The science of roasting involves aromatic byproducts and focuses on enzymatic, sugar browning and dry distillation. The art of roasting involves controlling parameters of time, temperature and technique. The roasting operators take pride in their work.
The dry distillation on the darker roast brings carbony, smoky or roasty attributes. If you look at roast color, the lighter roasted coffees have brightness, acidity, and the fruity or citrus attributes. Medium-roasted coffees have chocolate, caramel, and nutty attributes.
We mix certain varieties together to make other products through different types of roasting. We can blend a mondo novo dark roast with a yellow catuai light roast and the combined attributes make for a complex cup of coffee.
Caramelized sugar is less sweet in the cup and the darker you roast the coffees the more caramelized sugars there are, and this is the reason for the roasty attributes. Acidity is measured by the brightness or liveliness and citrus attributes. It is mild but we try to score acidity by what we are picking up in the cupping of a particular batch.
TGI: What varieties of coffee do you produce?
The five varieties are yellow catuai, mondo novo, typica, red catuai and Kauai blue mountain. The five varieties are known as a type one bean with two seeds, and the type two beans are the peaberries, which is a single seed and allows us to expand our product line that much more. Then we do different roast profiles and blends or mixes for a whole other set of products. We try and step outside of the box and be creative.
TGI: How do you make decaffeinated coffee?
We don’t do the decaffeination process here. It gets sent out to Canada for a Swiss water process that involves soaking beans in flavored charged water. The caffeine is extracted from the water through carbon filters and they use the saturated water to soak another batch of coffee to repeat the process. Regular decaffeinated is a type one bean and we are now offering decaffeinated typica as well as using the type two peaberries.
TGI: How is coffee grown and processed here?
The blossoming period occurs from February to May and the fruit ripens by late September. Harvesting is done only once a year and falls during the holiday season.
Right now is a critical time to do the tests as far as ripeness and once they pull the trigger you have to get the cherries off the trees before you lose them. Last week we had a lot of rain, which is good, but if we are at the peak of the season then the cherries fall and we have to harvest quickly to keep from losing yields.
Wet processing occurs within hours of harvesting to prevent fermentation. The cherries are separated in ripe, natural, and immature stages of maturity before the skin and the fruit is removed in a pulper.
After hydrowashing to remove the coating, the beans start the drying process while maintaining moisture levels required by the Department of Agriculture. The beans are then milled to remove parchment and silverskin.
Then we have color sorters, shakers and density tables to produce our existing line, but at the end of the day we have the capability to separate out small batches that we sun dry as well.
That is one of the things we work on as far as new products. Sun drying takes a little longer but we do make and market those products.
As far as roasting, we do that year-round by storing the beans in dehumidified containers with air conditioners and dehumidifiers to keep them cool.
Last year we had about 2.4 or 2.6 million pounds of coffee and we only roasted about 500,000 pounds (for our sales) and the rest we shipped out our owners (Massimo Zanetti Beverage USA), which is roasted on the Mainland.
TGI: Are there threats to the coffee industry on Kauai?
The biggest concern for us is the Coffee Berry Borer, which is detrimental for the quality of the coffee. It hasn’t hit here but it is bad in Kona and unfortunately for them it affects the prices they get. That is something that we are really, really concerned about. We take steps but you can only do so much.
So far we have flourished so well on Kauai without incident. This is due to a collaborative effort. Everyone does their job. We must be doing something right.
