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| Big Island Coffee Roasters managed the Kaʻū Coffee Sensory Experience at the Kaʻū Coffee Festival's Ho'olaulea last Saturday. Photo by Alla Kostenko |
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| Eleven Ka'u Coffees were featured at the Sensory Experience at Kaʻū Coffee Festival. Photo by Ophir Danenberg |
R&G Farms' Kaʻū Royal Coffee, owned by Gloria Camba and Rogelio Aquino, grows Typica, Red and Yesllow Caturra, and Red and Yellow Catuai.
A Coffee Farm, owned by James McCully and operated by Ruslan Kuznetsof and Alla Kostenko, grows Catuai, Parainema, Castillo and Lempira.
MH Coffee, owned by Sergio Lopez and Leslie Reyes, grows Catuai, Caturra and Typica.
Kealaka'ikoa Coffee Co., owned the Dacalio 'Ohana, grows Guatemala Typica and Arabica from Ethiopia.
Silver Cloud Coffee Farm, owned by Miles Mayne, grows several varieties of coffee.
Navarro Farms Monarch Coffee, owned by Delvin and Shawnette Navarro, grows Typica, Red Caturra, Red and Yellow Catuai and Pacamara.
Rusty's Hawaiian, owned by Lorie and Joan Obra and Ralph Gaston, grows a variety of coffees.
Will & Grace Farm's Rising Sun Coffee, owned by Will and Grace Tabios, grows several varieties of coffee.
Miranda Farms, owned by Berta, Jose and Maria Miranda, grows Typica, Yellow Caturra, Red Catuai, Geisha and more.
Kaʻū Coffee Mill, founded by Edmund C. Olson, grows a variety of coffees.
Elepoki Enterprises Coffee, owned by Cory and Connie Koi, grows Ka'u Maragogype and Kaʻū Caturra.
Ka'ile Mali'e Farms, owned by Rodney and Marlene Freitas, grows Guatemala Typica.
To read comments, add your own, and like this story, seefacebook.com/kaucalendar. See upcoming events, print edition and archive at kaunews.com. Support this news service with advertising at kaunews.com. 7,500 copies in the mail and on stands.
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| The Mauna Kea cover is by artist Catherine Robbins, |
Mauna Kea also recently received three honors from the Eric Hoffer Book Awards, including being shortlisted as a Finalist for their 2024 Grand Prize, the highest honor in their panoply of annual awards. It also received an Honorable Mention in the Hoffer General Fiction category and was a da Vinci Eye Finalist for the book's cover art and design.
Mauna Kea, the first novel about the cultural clash over Mauna Kea telescopes, is written from Peek's perspective as an insider involved in the movement to protect the mountain for three decades. He said that seven years of research, writing, and multiple pre-publication reviews by islanders and other readers went into its creation.
The book includes a dozen pen-and-ink illustrations by renowned nature artist John D. Dawson and cover art—Lilinoe—by longtime Hawaiʻi Island oil painter Catherine Robbins.
The novel’s backstory includes chapters set on the backwaters of the Mississippi in the author’s home state of Minnesota and historical and contemporary references to Upper Midwest culture and politics.
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| One of the illustrations in Mauna Kea by nature artist John D. Dawson |
The Amazon description of the book describes Mauna Kea this way: "Mauna Kea: A Novel of Hawai'i is a gripping tale of clashing passions—science and spirituality, vengeance and compassion, fear and courage—set atop Hawaiʻi’s 14,000-foot Mauna Kea, realm of revered goddesses and star-wise explorers. A young vagabond running from America’s turmoil is forced to confront his own grief and rage on an embattled holy mountain in the Pacific. There he encounters a mysterious domain of ancient mountain deities and the Native Hawaiians who revere them, including two wise elders who take him under their wings and a young woman with a world-weary heart akin to his own. Through his startling experiences with them—and a motley cadre of other islanders—he learns the power of aloha and discovers an untapped reservoir of faith and courage that rekindles his hope in himself and in the world we share."
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Peek is also author of Daughters of Fire, which is described by Amazon as "a gripping adventure of romance, intrigue, myth and murder set amid the cultural tensions of contemporary Hawai'i.
"A visiting astronomer falls in love with a Hawaiian anthropologist who guides him into a Polynesian world of volcanoes, gods and revered ancestors. The lovers get caught up in murder and intrigue as developers and politicians try to conceal that a long-dormant volcano is rumbling back to life above the hotel-laden Kona coast. The anthropologist joins forces with an aging seer and a young activist, and these three Hawaiian women summon their deepest traditions to confront the latest, most extravagant resort as the eruption and the murder expose deep rifts in paradise.
"More than a decade in its research and writing, Tom Peek's mystical and provocative debut novel picks up Hawai'i's story where James Michener left off. Daughters of Fire illuminates how the island's transformation into a tourist mecca and developers gold mine sparked a Native Hawaiian movement to reclaim their culture, protect sacred land, and step into the future with wisdom and aloha."
To read comments, add your own, and like this story, see facebook.com/kaucalendar. See upcoming events, print edition and archive at kaunews.com. Support this news service with advertising at kaunews.com. 7,500 copies in the mail and on stands.
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