"The impression from the judges and organizers is that Kona produces an exceptional cup of coffee from its heritage trees and has so many exciting possibilities for future creativity." Matt Carter, co-chair of the cupping competition, said that in the Kona Coffee Cultural Festival's 2025 winners release. The two halves of that sentence describe two separate contests. At the festival's cupping competition, the coffee that has defined Kona for generations goes up against itself, while the experimental lots compete on their own table. Last year's scores show why.
This year's festival opens Friday, Nov. 6, and runs through Sunday, Nov. 15. The parade, the pageants and the Ho'olaule'a get most of the attention. The awards ceremony on the last afternoon is the one event that pours both scoreboards in the same room.
Last year's podiums, side by side
The 2025 competition had three divisions. Heritage was limited to washed Kona typica with no commercial yeasts, bacteria or inoculants. Certified had the same rules, plus the coffee had to come from a certified lot of at least 500 pounds graded No. 1 or above. Creative took any Kona-grown variety and any processing method.
| Place | Heritage | Certified | Creative |
|---|---|---|---|
| First | Imagine 100% Kona Coffee, 85.08 | Gandona 100% Kona Coffee, 83.92 | Hawaiian Goat Coffee, 86.58 |
| Second | Ka'awaloa Trail Farm, 84.92 | Kona Crown Coffee Darnell Estate, 83.33 | Kona Farm Direct, 86.50 |
| Third | Aloha Aina, 84.83 | Cancino Family Farm, 81.83 | Hula Daddy Kona Coffee, 86.42 |
Look at the columns. The third-place Creative coffee scored 86.42, which is 1.34 points above the best Heritage coffee of the year. Every Creative podium score beat every Heritage podium score. The Heritage podium itself was tight, with only 0.25 points between first and third. Judges were splitting hairs among very similar coffees, and the Creative table sat a full step above them.
The winning Creative coffee wasn't exotic, either. Hawaiian Goat Coffee won with SL-34-28, which the festival describes as a varietal with a Typica-like genetic background and notes of "bright lemon candy, mixed fruit, and smooth milk-chocolate finish." The festival didn't publish processing methods for the winning lots, so the scores alone can't say how much of that 86.58 came from the tree and how much came from what happened after picking.
Why the festival cups them apart
Scoring is the same on both tables. Entries are judged double-blind on the Specialty Coffee Association's 100-point cupping format. A single shared scoreboard would rank every coffee on one list, and last year that list would have put every Creative podium coffee ahead of all of the traditional typica.
The festival has explained the split in plain terms. In 2024, Big Island Video News reported that cupping the divisions separately was meant to give "a little more attention" to the differences among un-inoculated, washed typica coffees. The same account noted that cultivar choice, cherry fermentation, pulping and drying all shape flavor, and that experimental methods were drawing attention.
The 2024 rulebook went further than any press release. It listed variety, method, inoculant, elevation and fermentation time as ways one entry could differ from another. It named Maragogype and SL-34 as example varieties, and it called co-fermentation and anaerobic environments emerging techniques that were gaining popularity.
The farmers have the same question in front of them. The October 2026 newsletter from the Kona Coffee Farmers Association announced this year's cupping rules, and directly below that it ran an item titled "Is Gesha Losing its Grip on Coffee Competitions?" Its takeaways said non-Gesha varieties are now winning major competitions, and that local terroir and careful processing are helping other varieties beat Gesha. In that discussion, a Heritage division keeps a place for the coffee Kona built its name on.
A smaller field for 2026
This year's rules change who gets into the cupping room. Next to last year's numbers, the 2026 rulebook makes four changes:
- Two divisions. Heritage and Creative remain, with the same definitions as before. Certified is no longer a separate division.
- One entry per farm per division. A farm can enter twice at most, and its two entries must be different coffees. The 2024 rules had allowed multiple distinct entries per farm.
- A 70-entry cap, first come, first served. The 2025 competition drew 96 farm entries, so this year's field is at least 26 entries smaller.
- A $150 entry fee and an 80-point floor. Any coffee scoring below 80 doesn't count as specialty grade and is disqualified.
Entries were collected Sept. 27 through Oct. 16 at the UCC Hawaii kiosk at 75-5568 Mamalahoa Highway in Holualoa, so the field is set. The festival hasn't said why it dropped Certified or added the cap. Here's what the rules do on paper. With one Heritage slot per farm, each farm had to pick its single best washed typica, and with one Creative slot, its single best experiment. Last year's release said the festival brought the competition in-house to invest "directly in quality standards, transparency, and farmer support." The rules also say the festival intends to have cupping feedback sheets ready at the awards ceremony and to email them to entrants.
Tasting both styles before the winners are named
You can train your palate on both kinds of coffee in the week before the awards. Here's the order, using the festival's current listings:
- Nov. 6 through 14, Island Sun Coffee tours. These run every day of the first stretch. Check the festival schedule for pricing.
- Nov. 9 through 13, the weekday farm block. Greenwell Farms runs its Seed-to-Cup tour at 9 a.m. and 1 p.m., and the tasting is free with a festival button. The same week, the schedule lists a Buddha's Cup tasting, a UCC farm experience and a Doutor farm tour with tasting.
- Saturday, Nov. 14, the Ho'olaule'a. It runs 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Makae'o Pavilion, 75-5500 Kuakini Highway at the Old Airport. Kona farmers pour samples next to the festival's largest Made in Hawai'i artisan marketplace, an ethnic food court and the lei contest. Online lei contest registration closes Wednesday, Nov. 11.
- Sunday, Nov. 15, the awards ceremony. It runs 1 to 3 p.m. at Buddha's Cup Sanctuary Event Space, 78-1377 Bishop Road in Holualoa. The winners are announced, and guests can sample the top award-winning coffees along with light pupus.
The farm days are when to ask how a coffee was processed. Washed, natural or co-fermented is exactly the line that decides which division a lot belongs in. Ask at the Ho'olaule'a pour tables too, since that's the one place with many farms pouring in a single morning.
The Sunday afternoon math
The awards ceremony and the monthly Kōkua Kailua Village Stroll overlap. On Nov. 15, Ali'i Drive closes to vehicles between the pier and seawall and Hualālai Road from 1 to 6 p.m., and more than 100 vendor booths set up. The ceremony upslope in Holualoa ends at 3, so you can go to the cupping first and still catch three hours of the stroll on the way back down. Park with the closure in mind.
For the Saturday Ho'olaule'a, check the venue listing before you head out. The county parks page, updated Oct. 21, lists a project at the same 75-5500 Kuakini Highway address that includes demolishing the old terminal and building new parking, concession and comfort-station facilities. When that page was updated, permits were still in process and construction was projected for September or October. The festival still lists Makae'o Pavilion as the venue.
All of these events run on the $10 festival button, which the festival sells at its events and at listed retail locations. The festival's general admission note says children 5 and under are free. The awards ceremony and Ho'olaule'a listings say the button is required for guests over 12, so check the event page if you're bringing kids in between.
Under the 2026 rules, each division names its own top three, so the ceremony's results come out as two separate lists. Taste a Heritage winner and then a Creative winner, and you'll be judging the same comparison the judges kept on separate tables.
If you're out at the Ho'olaule'a or up in Holualoa for the awards, I'd love to hear which table won you over. And if you're thinking about land or a home along the coffee belt, let's connect. Tessie Fontes is always happy to talk story about what makes each stretch of Kona its own place.
