Kona Coffee Cultural Festival kicks off Friday highlighting island’s oldest farmers

The upcoming 54th Annual Kona Coffee Cultural Festival will highlight one of the oldest coffee farmers on the Big Island, 88-year-old Ray Chickao Kunitake.

He will be the Grand Marshal for the Lantern Parade, which takes place on Friday at 6 p.m. —and launches the 10 days of festivities that showcase the tradition, innovation and world-renowned coffee of the Big Island.

The Kunitake family of Japanese descent has been growing coffee in the Kona Coffee Belt since 1926. Now, the family’s fifth generation of coffee farmers is running the Waiaha River Coffee Company on their 20-acre farm in Hōlualoa.

Kunitake said the coffee industry is “Kona’s legacy.”

He also said not much has changed over the decades at his family farm.

“We do the same thing as we did in my grandfather’s time,” Kunitake said. “We manage and we make coffee like they did.”

From handpicking the beans down to taking them to the mill, Kunitake said the work is labor-intensive.

While he’s not sure what his duties are as parade marshal, Kunitake is excited to have been chosen, saying: “We’re always happy when the festival comes around. It’s like a reunion.”

Malia Bolton, retail chair and festival board member, said the Kunitake family is a legend in the coffee industry and “it’s pretty special to still have those families here.”

Bolton, whose family owns and operates the Kona Coffee & Tea farm as well as the café in downtown Kona on Palani Road, said it’s important to preserve the purveyors and pioneers who created the coffee industry on the Big Island.

“As a modern-day farmer, it’s a lot of work,” Bolton said. “It’s a lot easier to sell this product because of those (farmers) before who had it recognized as a world-renowned coffee.”

Bolton said the festival is critical because it tells those stories of the immigrant families – like the Kunitakes – that came together to create an industry and a known product.

“Coffee is a community builder, and it brings people together,” Bolton said.

A $10 Kona Coffee Cultural Festival button gives people access to nearly all events with special rates for ticketed events. Children ages 12 and under are free. Proceeds help fund ongoing community programming, scholarships and festival infrastructure and events.

Other festival highlights this year include the Kona Coffee Cupping Competition, Hōlualoa Coffee & Art Stroll, cultural workshops, coffee farm and mill tours, the UCC Hawai‘i Miss Kona Coffee Scholarship Competition and more. Click here for a full list of the events.

Corcoran also highlighted a new pickleball tournament and the Aloha Theater will be hosting a five-course dinner featuring coffee.

From its roots in 1970 as a small community gathering, the Kona Coffee Cultural Festival has blossomed into an internationally recognized celebration of agriculture, heritage and Hawaiian hospitality. It holds the distinction as one of the longest-running food festivals in the state and one of the only heritage coffee festival in the United States.