coffee Fraud or Fudgery?

Yes, it happens. Sadly. And it happens on all links of the coffee flavor chain, from farmers all the way down. We’re talking about fraud. Plain, old-fashioned, deception, deceit and dishonestly.

Or is it fudging the gray areas of truth? Perhaps some permissible puffery?

Kona coffee in Hawaii is a great example of fraud (and its gray areas) seeping into the world of luxurious, high-end coffee. Until recently, coffee retailers in Hawaii and the mainland U.S. sold “Kona” labelled coffee without a hitch, except for one uncomfortable fact. The amount of coffee sold by retailers exceeded the production of coffee actually grown in coffee—by a multiple of nearly 10! Counterfeit cringe!

Surely that’s fraud. Or is it? Turns out until 2013, Coca Cola sold a pomegranate blend juice without an ounce of pomegranate in it. Then someone (well POM—the makers of real pomegranate juice) convinced the Supreme Court that was misleading consumers without specifically labelling the product something like, “well, this isn’t pomegranate juice but we really tried hard—without using any pomegranate (ha!)—to make it taste like pomegranates.” Why would something like that even reach the Supreme Court and engage nine of the top jurists in our country? The argument was that “pomegranate” can imply a “taste” or a vibe rather than actual ingredients. Lawyers!

So, the Supreme Court shot that down, which prompted Kona coffee farmers to sue everyone in sight for labelling something Kona coffee without using Kona coffee. Not so shockingly, they won and received tens of millions of dollars in damages.

All’s well that ends well? Not quite (lawyers!). Enter the gray area of “blends” in the coffee world. Everyone—even the consumer—understands that a blend of coffee to be a, well, blend, of different coffee beans. But what if a retailer sold a “Kona” blend. Does that imply blends of different Kona beans? Some Kona beans? Kona beans with other Hawaiian beans?

The good news is Hawaii passed laws to address that issue. The bad news is they’re not great. Under current law, retailers are allowed to sell coffee as “Kona blends” if only 10% of the blend contains actual Kona-grown coffee beans. And now we’re back to selling a “pomegranate juice blend” where only 10% of the blend is pomegranates. Not very comforting. But Hawaii recently passed legislation tightening the law to require at least 50% of Kona-grown coffee for “Kona blends”. Definitely a step in the right direction, but we’re not quite there.

Can you imagine paying $100 for a Napa Valley Cabernet blend, only to realize (and without being told) 50% of the wine is from Napa and the other 50% is from Trenton, New Jersey? Coffee should really be no different, and many countries strictly control their regional appellations.

All this underscores the importance of reputable roasters and retailers. With us, we know and support our farmers in Hawaii, so we only sell 100% single-origin coffee from each of Hawaii’s coffee growing regions, like Kona, Ka’u and Puna. Our Hawaiian blends are 100% Hawaiian, and we only blend the coffee with other Hawaiian regions for flavor—never for economics. We also disclose our micro lots and blend recipes to see for yourself where the coffee comes from.

No chicanery here! Just good, honest coffee!