Kona Coffee Quest

	We had a request from one of our friends to bring home some Kona coffee. Not flavored, no fancy roasts, not ground. We have tasted several different kinds of Kona coffee this week and decided that our favorite was a brand called Buddha's Cup. We looked for it in several local markets, but couldn't find it anywhere. Finally, we punched in the address on the GPS and it took us up the hill into coffee country.
	The road got narrower, the moisture thicker and on both sides of the road were small coffee plantations. We researched and found that each plantation is only about three acres.
	The road got more narrow and the pavement stopped. I'm sure this isn't covered in our rental agreement... (Sorry Hertz)
	We came across a processing station. Here they "shell" the beans, or take the bean from the cherry as they call it.
	The beans are spread out on plywood floors covered with plastic to dry for two weeks. Here are batches from several different plantations. Then the beans are bagged up in big gunny sacks and roasted in town.
	They collect the shells in this trailer and spread them back amongst the coffee plants for fertilizer.
	The beans come down a shute into these tubs at the end of the machine that shells them. You can see that every once in a while a red shell pops through. The guys just reach in and take them out. However, there was no place to purchase any coffee. So one of the workers drove off in a truck to get the plantation owner.
	Mario was very friendly and asked us to follow him as he drove off in his big four wheel drive which could definitely handle what passed for a road...
	At this point, our GPS showed that there were no more roads and we were basically driving up the side of Mauna Loa!
	Magically we arrived at Mario's house/shop and were able to buy the coffee that was requested. The only thing we had to do now was find our way back down the mountain! Gee, the things we do for a cup of coffee!