I learned to enjoy coffee as a youngster in Germany. As I matured so did my coffee tastes, which finally settled on Mocha-Java as my favorite.

Then calamity set in. I emigrated to the US in 1954. There one drank coffee that had been sitting in a carafe on an electric hot plate, losing what little taste it might have had when brewed. I knew good coffee existed and could be had, but not on an immigrant’s budget.

I finally found REAL coffee, or maybe it was the other way around, the coffee found me.

In 2004 Margo and I located a delightful place mauka (toward the mountain) from Kona-Kailua on Hawaii. We drove up the slope of the old Hualalai crater, crossed the old Mamalahoa Hiway near Holualoa, and continued another half mile up the slope.

We were now right in the center of the famous Kona Coffee belt in an old abandoned coffee plantation. The cabin we had rented was a converted Hoshidana, a coffee drying shack, small yet passable.

Coffee bushes with their ripe, red coffee cherries were still growing along the edges of this place, tempting the unsuspecting newcomer to try his luck. I was not alone in this venture. Our daughter Doris had flown in from Victoria, BC to join us for two weeks.

Doris and I pooled our explorer spirits and ventured forth among the lava boulders to mount an attack on the coffee bushes. Now you should know that coffee cherries, as they are called, do not ripen all at the same rime. They draw their ripening season out over several weeks, which caused us to spend many hours, over a number of days, climbing, stumbling, and even falling among lava rocks.

And let me not forget the tropical vegetation, which tried mightily to reclaim the land. Myriads of vines were determined to entangle us, trip us, and simply by sheer numbers build a bulwark to keep us out of their domain.

But we persevered and succeeded in amassing a good crop of coffee beans. We learned to remove the flesh, to free the inner kernel holding the coffee beans, to crack the shells, and finally free the beans inside. All that remained was the roasting.

And here Doris shined, ever the practical person she is. The frying pan was cleaned, the electric hot plate was fired up, and the roasting process began. It was a huge success, both regarding the flavor of the coffee as well as regarding an unforeseen byproduct of roasting about which no one had warned us.

Each bean is enveloped in a transparent, ultra thin parchment that is freed piecemeal by the roasting process. The heat carries them up to the ceiling, and then they drift like gossamer snowflakes around the room, covering every surface available.

We succeeded in producing an exquisitely flavorful Kona Coffee roast and we fully deserved to have a cup of coffee and relax.

We did so, but on the porch outside.