Kona
Rainforest

Name: Kona Rainforest Organic Coffee Estate
Brand: Kona Rainforest Organic Coffee
SKU: MLS-732847
Price: 4770000 USD
Availability: InStock

Kūlia i ka Nuʻu. To strive for excellence in all things.

Captain Cook, Hawaiʻi Island78.64 Acres · Fee Simple USDA Certified OrganicMLS 732847

$4,770,000Turnkey, business included

Why this pencils

You are not buying dirt. You are buying capacity that is already paid for.

Four things make the math work before a single new tree goes in the ground.

One

A depreciable asset base

A mill, an optical sorter, a roastery, 39 kW of solar with battery storage, vehicles and tractors. Equipment and improvements of this scale carry a real depreciation position for an incoming owner, and the allocation is worth structuring deliberately with a CPA.

Two

Revenue channels never opened

No tasting room. No farm store. No subscription club. A gift range of three items. The mill has capacity beyond this estate’s own crop and can process organic coffee for other growers. Every one of those is margin sitting unclaimed on infrastructure that already exists.

Three

Agricultural financing

This does not finance like a residence. Ag lenders underwrite land, improvements, equipment and the operating business together. American AgCredit financing may be available to qualified buyers.

Four

Certification already earned

USDA organic status on this ground is done. Transition is the slowest, least forgiving part of organic farming, and a buyer here starts on the far side of it rather than starting the clock.

Offered at

$4,770,000Turnkey, business included

Land

78.64 acFee simple, three contiguous parcels

In coffee

35 ac1,600 to 2,200 ft elevation

Processing

8,000 sfMill, optical sorter, estate roastery

Power

39 kWOff grid PV, battery and generator

Water

150k galRain catchment storage

Residences

5 bd / 3 baTwo ocean view homes

Certification

USDAOrganic, crops and handling

The Case

Twenty two years of work, already in the ground.

Kona Rainforest began as five planted acres. It is now 35 acres of coffee across 78.64 acres and three contiguous parcels, between 1,600 and 2,200 feet in the Kona Coffee Belt. The trees are mature. The mills run. The roastery packs finished bags under a brand that already has its own customers.

That is the argument for the price. Not what the farm earns, which is released privately under NDA, but what it would cost to build again and how long it would take. The planting in particular cannot be bought at any price, because it cannot be hurried.

78.64Total acres

35Acres in coffee

8,000Sq ft facility

150kGallon catchment

The estate

Five acres became thirty five, one season at a time.

Kona Rainforest was planted out of five acres and grown deliberately over more than two decades into a vertically integrated estate: its own mill, its own roastery, its own label, its own customers. Along the way it took a Kona Classic Division win at the Kona Coffee Cupping Competition and carried USDA organic certification through every year of it.

The farm operates under the phrase Kūlia i ka Nuʻu, to strive for excellence in all things. That is visible in the choices made here: full organic certification on a permanent tree crop, an 8,000 square foot mill built new, and an entire operation taken off grid rather than run on the cheapest available power.

What it is looking for now is its next steward.

Infrastructure

Entirely off grid, by design and at scale.

This is not a farm with panels on a shed. The processing facility runs on a 39 kW photovoltaic array with Blue Ion battery storage, backed by a 48 kW Generac generator. The two residences run on a second, separate solar system. Water is rain catchment throughout, approximately 150,000 gallons of designed storage.

For a buyer that means no utility interconnect, no power bill on the mill, and an operation that keeps processing when the grid on this coast does not. It also means the single largest infrastructure cost on a remote agricultural property is already spent.

Aerial of the processing facility roof covered in solar panels beside the water tanks — Processing facility, photovoltaic array and catchment

Solar array on the facility roof from above — 39 kW array with battery storage

What conveys

Land, business, brand and equipment, in one transaction.

78.64 fee simple acres across three contiguous parcels. 35 acres planted in coffee. A newly built 8,000 square foot processing facility with wet mill, dryers, dry mill, optical sorter, fermentation tanks and climate controlled storage. An estate roastery. Two ocean view residences. Vehicles, tractors, Gators and farm implements.

And the part most farm listings cannot offer: the established brand, the website, the online retail channels and the operating business itself.

See the investment case Schedule a showing

The Investment

The upside is not speculative. It is unused capacity.

None of it requires new land, new trees or a new certification.

Kona operations that have built farm tours, direct to consumer subscriptions, on farm retail and value added products run substantially larger businesses on substantially less land. That is the established pattern on this island, not a projection.

This estate has more planted acreage, more processing capacity and certified organic handling than the farms doing it, and has built almost none of that revenue architecture. The coffee has always been the point here. The business around the coffee was never the point, and that is precisely what is left on the table.

The established playbook

This has already been proven in Kona, on less land than this.

The direct to consumer model for a Kona estate is not experimental. It is a known sequence, and farms in this appellation run it profitably on a fraction of this acreage. The components are consistent:

See the six components of the playbookOpenClose

Traffic

Free farm tours

Tours are the acquisition channel, not the product. Visitors arrive, taste, and leave as customers who reorder from the mainland.

Conversion

Tasting and farm store

On site tasting and a retail counter convert a visit into a first purchase at full retail margin rather than wholesale.

Recurring

Subscription club

A coffee club turns one purchase into recurring monthly revenue. One 20 acre certified organic Kona farm on this island reports more than two thousand subscribers.

Basket size

Gift and merchandise

Chocolate covered beans, mugs, tumblers, body products and teas raise order value without raising a single additional tree.

Range

Specialty products

Cold brew concentrate, decaf, espresso and peaberry widen the catalog well beyond bags of roasted whole bean.

Reach

Nationwide fulfillment

Farm to cup shipping to all fifty states, often inside 72 hours of roasting, is the standard those farms hold themselves to.

Kona Rainforest has the tour invitation, an online store and a three item gift range. It has almost none of the rest. No tasting room, no farm store, no subscription club, and a product range that stops at roasted coffee and a mug. Every one of those is built on infrastructure that already exists here at larger scale. Commercial agritourism on A-5A land is subject to County of Hawaiʻi permitting, which a buyer should scope with the Planning Department during diligence.

Custom milling

The wet mill, dry mill and optical sorter were built for this estate’s crop. Kona is full of smaller farms with no access to processing at this grade, and the operation holds USDA organic handling certification, so it can process other growers’ organic coffee and keep it certified through the mill. Very few facilities on this coast can legally do that. The facility was built for volume beyond what the current planting produces. Toll milling turns that surplus capacity into a revenue line without planting a single new tree.

Value added products

The estate sells roasted coffee and stops there. Kona derived products carry margins that green and roasted coffee do not: cascara from the cherry pulp, coffee blossom honey, ready to drink and cold brew, confection, liqueur, and skincare. The roastery, the mill and a certified organic supply chain to feed them are already on site. The operation already holds USDA organic handling certification, so certified processing capability is in place. Hawaiʻi’s origin labeling rules govern anything called Kona, and food products outside coffee carry their own State health permitting, so product development belongs with counsel. The raw material, the certification and the facility are already here.

Reforestation and agroforestry

Roughly 43 acres are not in coffee. Native koa and ‘ōhi‘a restoration, shade grown agroforestry and diversified tree crops all suit this elevation and rainfall, and and conservation and cost share programs exist to support them, subject to a buyer’s own eligibility.

Expanded planting

The planting went from five acres to 35 over two decades, on a 78.64 acre property. The land, the water and the processing capacity to go further are already here, and the remaining acreage is a buyer’s to survey against their own plan.

Organic continuity

The ground is certified and through transition. An operator intending to keep farming organically inherits the slowest part of that status instead of restarting it on new land.

Market context

Roughly one percent of the entire Kona appellation, and among the largest certified organic estates in it.

Kona is one of the smallest protected coffee origins in the world. The most recent Census of Agriculture counted approximately 3,534 bearing acres across fewer than 800 Kona farms, and the typical Kona farm runs between one and five acres. With 35 acres planted this estate is on the order of one percent of the entire appellation, and very little of that acreage is both certified organic and vertically integrated from cherry through roasting.

Supply is tightening. USDA NASS forecast Hawaiʻi utilized production at 17.8 million pounds cherry for the 2025-2026 season, down 20 percent year over year. Statewide farm prices in recent reporting have run near $2.00 to $2.50 per pound for cherry and roughly $14 per pound for parchment.

Sources: USDA Census of Agriculture; USDA NASS Pacific Region, Hawaiʻi Field Office. Figures are statewide or appellation wide and are not a representation about this farm’s production or revenue.

The Land

Three contiguous parcels, one working farm.

78.64 fee simple acres across TMKs 3-8-7-13-30, 33 and 93, zoned A-5A, on the mauka side of Hawaii Belt Road. Gentle slope, private road access, mountain and ocean views throughout. Flood Zone X, Lava Zone 2.

Aerial photograph with the three parcel boundaries overlaid — The three contiguous parcels, boundaries overlaid

Location

Inside the coffee belt, above the water, on the highway.

The Kona Coffee Belt is a narrow strip on the western slopes of Hualalai and Mauna Loa. It is the only place on earth that may sell coffee as Kona, and it is roughly thirty miles long and a couple of miles wide.

The property sits in South Kona at 87-2854 Hawaii Belt Road, on the mauka side just past mile marker 95, with highway frontage and private gated access.

Elevation

1,600 to 2,200 ft

Total acreage

78.64 ac

Planted in coffee

35 ac

Parcels

3 contiguous

To Kailua-Kona

approx. 25 mi

To Kona Int’l Airport

approx. 35 mi

Zoning

A-5A

Land tenure

Fee simple

What grows here

Planted in the band that makes Kona coffee taste like Kona coffee.

35 acres are planted at 1,600 to 2,200 feet, in volcanic soil off Mauna Loa carrying potassium, magnesium and phosphorus. Afternoon cloud cover shades the trees through the hottest part of the day, which is the reason this strip of coast produces the coffee it does.

Water comes entirely from rain catchment, approximately 150,000 gallons of designed storage capacity. Tropical fruit trees including established lychee occupy part of the balance.

Kona Typica

The heritage Kona varietal. The tree this estate was built on.

Red Bourbon

Almond, chocolate, citric fruits.

SL34

Blackberry, dark chocolate, currant.

K7

Caramel, cocoa, jasmine.

Peaberry

Not a variety but a bean. Roughly one cherry in twenty produces a single round seed instead of two flat ones. It is sorted out across all four varieties and sold separately.

Private Reserve

Not a variety either. It is the estate’s own label for its core coffee.

Extra Fancy and Chateau

Not varieties. These are the two top grades of the Typica crop, sorted by bean size at the dry mill.

Naturals

Not a variety. The cherry is dried whole with the fruit still on, which gives a sweeter, fruitier cup. Sold as its own small lot.

Coffee rows above the ocean — Rows above the water

Operation

Cherry to finished bag, without leaving the property.

A newly built 8,000 square foot processing facility holds the full line: wet mill, dryers, dry mill, optical sorter, fermentation tanks and climate controlled storage. An estate roastery handles roasting and packaging on site, which is what lets the farm sell finished retail bags under its own name rather than green beans at commodity pricing.

The farm is entirely off grid. A 39 kW photovoltaic array with Blue Ion battery storage and 48 kW Generac backup powers the facility. The two residences run on their own separate solar system.

Private access road and processing building — Private access and processing building

Rooftop solar — Off grid power throughout

The facility

Built new, and built for more than this farm produces.

The processing facility was purpose built rather than grown into, and it was sized past the current planting. That headroom is what turns milling for neighboring growers from an idea into an option, and it is the reason the estate can take on more acreage without another capital project.

An original wet mill and open drying deck also remain on the property, retained as backup.

What the mill can run

Buyers ask about capacity more than anything else. These are the maker’s rated numbers for the Bendig line, taken from the Bendig equipment list and the original invoice.

Stage	Machine	Rated capacity
Wet mill	DV-10 pulper	5,500 lb of cherry per hour
Wet mill	Siphon tank, floats off light cherry	5,000 lb per hour
Wet mill	AGV-10 mucilage remover	1,763 to 2,204 lb per hour
Wet mill	DPI-10 repass pulper	2,000 lb per hour
Fermentation	One large tank, two medium tanks	2,000 lb of parchment, and 650 lb each
Drying	SG-15 dryer, two chambers	3,000 lb of parchment per load
Dry mill	Pneumatic elevator	2,500 lb per hour
Dry mill	PE-15 huller	1,500 lb per hour
Dry mill	CI-15 pneumatic catador	1,500 lb per hour
Dry mill	CV-10 size sorter	1,500 lb per hour
Dry mill	O-30 gravity table	3,000 lb per hour

How the farm runs it today

The farm runs the wet mill at about half of its rated speed. Hand picked cherry comes in with sticks and leaves, and the slower pace keeps the line clean.
The rated numbers are the ceiling. A new owner who cleans the cherry before it reaches the pulper, or mills for other farms, has room to run more.
Rated figures come from the manufacturer. A buyer should confirm them during diligence.

Interior of the processing facility — Processing hall

Optical sorting and grading equipment — Grading and optical sorting

The estate coffee roaster — Estate roastery

How Kona coffee is actually made

Nine steps between a red berry on a branch and a sealed bag.

Coffee is a fruit. What gets roasted is the seed inside it, and almost everything that determines quality happens in the two weeks between picking the fruit and storing the dried seed. Most Kona farms sell out after step three and let somebody else capture the rest. This property does all nine on site.

See how it is made, step by stepOpenClose

Step 01

Growing

Coffee grows as a fruit called cherry on trees that take three to five years to bear. These have been in the ground for up to twenty two.

Step 02

Hand picking

Cherry ripens unevenly, so pickers walk the same tree repeatedly over several weeks taking only the red fruit. Machine harvesting takes everything at once and is why most coffee tastes flat. This is picked by hand.

Step 03

Pulping, at the wet mill

The outer skin and fruit are stripped off within hours of picking, leaving the seed in a sticky layer called mucilage. Wait too long and the fruit ferments on the seed and ruins the lot. This is the step most small farms cannot do themselves.

Step 04

Fermentation

The pulped seed sits in tanks while natural enzymes break down what is left of the fruit. Hours matter. Controlled tanks are the difference between a clean cup and a sour one.

Step 05

Sun drying

The seed, now called parchment, is spread on a deck and dried in the sun for roughly two weeks, raked and turned so it dries evenly down to a target moisture. Rain at the wrong moment costs a crop.

Step 06

Hulling, at the dry mill

The dried parchment husk is peeled away to reveal the green bean. This is where coffee becomes a tradeable commodity, and where most farms finally sell.

Step 07

Grading and optical sorting

Beans are graded by size and density, then run through an optical sorter that photographs each bean and ejects defects. This is what separates Extra Fancy and Peaberry from everything else, and it is expensive equipment most farms do not own.

Step 08

Roasting

Green beans keep for a long time. Roasted beans do not. Roasting on site means the farm can roast to order rather than selling green and letting a mainland roaster take the retail margin.

Step 09

Packing and shipping

Roasted weekly and packed to order under the estate’s own label, so the customer receives coffee days off the roaster instead of months.

Also on site

Climate controlled storage

Green bean holds its quality for a year or more when stored correctly, which lets an operator sell across the year instead of dumping the crop at harvest.

The reason this matters to a buyer: every step a farm cannot do itself is a step where someone else takes the margin. A farm that sells cherry captures the least. A farm that sells its own roasted, branded, certified organic bags captures the most. This one is built to do the second thing, and the equipment to do it conveys.

USDA Certified Organic

The hardest credential in the operation, and the one that does not transfer.

Certification is the moat. It is also the thing most buyers discover too late.

USDACERTIFIED
ORGANIC

Operation: Kona RainForest Farms, LLC
NOP ID: 9092123003
Certifier: Where Food Comes From Organic
Scopes: Crops and Handling
Status: Certified, verifiable in the USDA Organic Integrity Database

Scope of certification

Certified as a grower and as a handler. Most farms are only one.

Kona Rainforest carries USDA organic certification across two scopes. The crop scope covers coffee grown on the land. The handling scope covers the milling, processing, roasting and packing that happen in the facility.

That distinction is the whole difference between this property and almost every other certified farm in Kona. A crops-only operation grows organic cherry and then hands it to somebody else’s mill, where it either loses certified status or has to be run under that facility’s certificate. Here the entire chain from tree to sealed bag stays inside one certified operation.

Certified operation

Kona RainForest Farms, LLC, doing business as Kona RainForest Organic Coffee. NOP ID 9092123003.

Certifying agent

Where Food Comes From Organic, an accredited USDA National Organic Program certifier.

Crops scope

Coffee, classified field and forageable.

Handling scope

Covers on site milling, processing, roasting and packing of finished product.

Certified acreage

Roughly 35 acres are planted in coffee overall, so a buyer should confirm the current certified footprint and the status of the balance directly with the certifier.

Certification details above are drawn from the USDA Organic Integrity Database record for NOP ID 9092123003 and can be verified there independently.

What that unlocks. A certified handler can process organic coffee grown by other farms and keep it organic through the mill. In an appellation where the typical farm runs one to five acres and has no access to certified organic processing, that is a service almost nobody else on this coast can legally offer.

Certified product line

Thirteen certified products, and the label conveys.

A buyer is not acquiring green beans and a hope. They are acquiring a certified organic product catalog already built, already approved under the operation’s handling certificate, and already selling under an established brand.

See the full certified product listOpenClose

Private Reserve Estate

Chateau. Extra Fancy. Peaberry. Kona Coffee Whole Bean. Natural process. Unroasted Green Typica.

Single Varietal Estate

Kona Typica. Red Bourbon and Red Bourbon Peaberry. SL34 and SL34 Peaberry. K7 and K7 Peaberry.

Processing range

Washed and natural process, whole bean and ground, roasted and unroasted green. The facility is certified for all of it.

Room to diversify

Established lychee is already growing on the property. It was previously included in the operation’s organic scope and was removed when it was not being sold commercially. Adding a second crop back to the organic system plan is an amendment to an existing certification rather than a new one.

What it takes

Three years of clean ground before a single label can say organic.

Land entering USDA organic certification must be free of prohibited substances for 36 months before its first certified harvest. On a permanent tree crop that clock runs while the trees are already in the ground and already costing money, which is why so few Kona farms carry the certification at all.

This ground is through it. The transition is complete and the operation runs under an approved organic system plan with annual third party inspection, using its own mulch, naturally derived fertility inputs and approved natural pest control.

The transfer risk

Certification stays with the operator, not the deed.

This is the single most expensive thing a buyer can get wrong on a certified property. When ownership changes, the certificate does not travel with the land. The incoming operator must hold their own certification, with their own organic system plan, approved by an accredited certifying agent, before product can be sold as organic under their name.

Done deliberately, and started early, it is an administrative process and the certified history of the ground carries forward. Done late or badly, a buyer can own a certified organic farm and be unable to sell certified organic coffee from it in their first season.

Maile Woodhall has spent nearly two decades as an independent USDA organic auditor, contracted by CCOF, Where Food Comes From and Organic Certifiers, and serves as an Organic Technical Assistance Specialist under a Hawaiʻi Farmers Union United TOPP grant. She was raised on an award winning organic farm in South Kona. A buyer working through this purchase is working with someone who inspects operations like this one for a living and can map the certification path before closing rather than after.

Funding an organic operation

Certified organic status opens programs conventional farms cannot reach.

Organic operations qualify for cost share and conservation programs specifically built around the certification, and an incoming operator can pursue them from day one because the ground is already certified.

Organic Certification Cost Share

USDA program reimbursing a share of annual certification costs for certified operations.

NRCS EQIP

Conservation program with an organic initiative pathway, covering practices such as soil health, irrigation efficiency, windbreaks and pest management.

FSA loans

Farm Service Agency farm ownership and operating loans, including programs oriented to beginning farmers.

TOPP

Transition to Organic Partnership Program technical assistance and mentorship, delivered in Hawaiʻi through Hawaiʻi Farmers Union United.

State programs

Hawaiʻi Department of Agriculture loan programs for agricultural producers and processors.

Program availability, funding cycles and eligibility change. Every buyer should confirm current terms directly with the administering agency. Nothing here is a guarantee of funding.

Equipment & Invested Capital

What the capital bought.

Twenty two years of capital, still in service, and all of it conveys.

A farm listing is usually land and buildings. This one includes the machinery that turns a crop into a product, the vehicles that work the ground, and the brand the product sells under. Every line below conveys with the sale. Original invoices and the full asset schedule with acquisition cost are released to qualified buyers under NDA.

Asset	Detail	Status
Processing facility	~8,000 sq ft, newly built	Conveys
Photovoltaic system	39 kW + Blue Ion storage	Conveys
Generator backup	48 kW Generac	Conveys
Wet mill	Bendig line, pulper rated 5,500 lb of cherry per hour	Conveys
Dry mill & optical sorter	Bendig huller rated 1,500 lb per hour, Satake optical sorter	Conveys
Fermentation tanks	Bendig tanks, 2,000 lb and 650 lb of parchment	Conveys
Climate controlled storage	Green bean holding	Conveys
Dryers	Bendig SG-15, 3,000 lb of parchment per load, plus drum dryers	Conveys
Estate roastery	20 kg roaster, small batch and sample roasters, packing room	Conveys
Rain catchment	~150,000 gal designed	Conveys
Planting	5 to ~35 acres over 22 years	Conveys
Rolling stock	Three John Deere tractors, skid steer, four Gators, farm trucks	Conveys
Backup wet mill	Original mill building with three pulpers and a drum dryer	Conveys
Brand & channels	Name, trademarks, website, wholesale and retail accounts	Conveys

Depreciation. A buyer acquiring this much equipment and improvement takes on a depreciation position, and the allocation between land, improvements, equipment and the going concern is worth structuring deliberately rather than by default. The full asset schedule is provided under NDA so a buyer’s CPA can model it before an offer is written. Nothing here is tax advice from the listing side.

The dry mill processing line — Dry mill line

Climate controlled storage room — Climate controlled storage

Tractors and utility vehicles under the equipment shed — Rolling stock conveys

Processing line from the yard — Processing line

Rated capacity for each machine in the mill is listed on the Operation page. Years, service history and acquisition cost for each asset are in the equipment schedule provided under NDA. Green coffee on hand at closing can be bought on a separate bill of sale.

Residences

Two ocean view homes convey.

Five bedrooms and three baths across two separate dwellings. Together they let an owner live on the farm and still house a manager, a caretaker, or guests who pay to stay, which matters a great deal if the next owner opens the property to visitors.

Both look out over the planting to the water. Both have full kitchens. Both convey.

Aerial of both residences and the grounds — Both residences and grounds

Residence one · Bourbon House · 3 bed / 2 bath

Vaulted ceilings and a lanai that wraps the coffee.

Three bedrooms and two baths. An open living and dining room under vaulted ceilings, a full kitchen with range, dishwasher and refrigerator, and a wide covered lanai that wraps the house and looks out across the planting to the water. The kind of house you eat every meal on the porch of.

Living room with vaulted ceiling — Living room

Wraparound lanai over the coffee rows — Lanai over the planting

WalkthroughInside Bourbon House Living room, kitchen, bedrooms and the lanai.

Residence one from the lawn — Bourbon House

Residence two · Peaberry House · 2 bed / 1 bath

Open plan, and pointed at the water.

Two bedrooms and one bath. An open plan built around a large central butcher block island, with a farmhouse sink, gas range and a wall of sliders opening onto a covered deck with an uninterrupted ocean view. A wood burning stove anchors the living end.

Living room opening to the ocean deck — Deck and ocean view

WalkthroughInside Peaberry House Great room, kitchen and the ocean deck.

Features & utilities

What is already in place.

Kitchen

Full kitchen with a large central island. Range stove, dishwasher and refrigerator.

Laundry

Washer and dryer on site.

Heating

One wood burning stove.

Security

Locked gate at both entrances.

Fencing

Hog fencing along the south and east boundaries.

Power

Solar and photovoltaic throughout. Separate systems for the processing facility and the residences, with generator backup.

Water

Rain catchment, approximately 150,000 gallons of designed storage.

Wastewater

Cesspool.

Connectivity

Cell service. Satellite internet available.

Roads

Private road access. Gentle slope throughout.

Schools

Hoʻokena Elementary. Konawaena Middle and High School.

Association

No CC&Rs. No monthly association dues.

Square footage and permitted status for each dwelling are available on request and should be independently verified by the buyer.

Gallery & Tour

See the whole property.

Photographed August 2026.

Aerial of the planting running toward the ocean

The farm

Land, planting and access.

Mill, roastery and infrastructure

The working side of the estate.

More

Video walkthroughs of the mill and both homes.

Open the virtual tour

To be added

Sharing must be enabled on the three Drive videos, or buyers hit a permission wall
Aerial fly through video

Virtual tour

Walk the property.

The millProcessing facility The mill and the full processing line.

AerialFly through A low pass over the roofline and out across the planting.

WalkthroughBourbon House Living room, kitchen, bedrooms and the lanai.

WalkthroughPeaberry House Great room, kitchen and the ocean deck.

In person

Nothing on a screen shows you the elevation.

The farm sits between 1,600 and 2,200 feet with the ocean below it and the mountain above. Video flattens that. A visit does not.

Showings are by appointment. This is an active working farm in harvest, so please schedule rather than driving up. Plan on two hours to walk the planting, the mill, the roastery and both houses properly.

Schedule a showing See the full gallery

Next Steps

How a purchase proceeds.

One

Tour the farm

By appointment. This is a working farm in harvest, so showings are scheduled.

Two

Sign an NDA

A short agreement covering the financial and operating records.

Three

Review financials

Profit and loss and the full asset and equipment schedule.

Four

Submit an offer

Proof of funds or lender preapproval required. See Financing for the routes.

One thing worth knowing before step four. Organic certification does not transfer with the deed. The incoming operator has to certify in their own name, and started late it can cost a buyer their first season of certified sales. The listing agent has spent nearly two decades as an independent USDA organic auditor and can map that path alongside the purchase rather than after it.

Schedule a showing Request financials under NDA

Your first year

The farm runs on a calendar. Here is the one you would step into.

Coffee is seasonal and the sequence does not move. A buyer taking possession is not starting something. They are joining a cycle already in motion.

February to April

Kona Snow

The trees flower white across the hillside. This bloom sets the size of the coming crop. Fieldwork is pruning, fertility and weed control.

May to July

Cherry fills

Green cherry develops on the branch. The quiet months, and the window for equipment maintenance and building anything new before harvest.

August to December

Harvest and milling

Pickers walk the rows repeatedly taking only red fruit. The wet mill runs daily, the drying deck fills, and the dry mill and sorter work through the crop.

Autumn onward

Roast and sell

Roasting and packing to order through the holiday retail season, the strongest selling window of the year for specialty coffee.

Straight answers

Questions a serious buyer asks, answered before you ask them.

Read the answersOpenClose

Is anything wrong with the property?

One water tank was damaged during Hurricane Lala. The tank was found fuller than expected on assessment and cannot be emptied mid season, so repair is deferred to roughly February or March 2027. Processing capacity is affected this season. It is disclosed in the MLS and it is in the seller disclosure.

Do I have to know how to farm coffee?

No, but somebody does. The operation runs on people who understand this specific farm, and continuity of on site knowledge is worth negotiating for. That conversation belongs in the offer, not after closing.

Who runs the farm today, and would they stay?

A small permanent team. A farming manager runs the field, the harvest and the wet mill. An operations lead handles organic certification, dry milling, roasting and green coffee sales. A fulfillment specialist packs and ships orders, and a bookkeeper keeps the accounts. Seasonal pickers come in for harvest. The operations lead is willing to stay on for initial training, and the team has said most would likely stay for a new owner once they have met the buyer and heard the plan. Nothing here is a promise that any person will stay. A role by role list is in the financials released under NDA.

What happens to the organic certification when I buy it?

It does not transfer. The incoming operator certifies in their own name, with their own organic system plan, through an accredited agent. The certified history of the ground carries forward, which is the hard part, but the paperwork is yours to complete and it should start before closing rather than after.

Off grid sounds romantic. What does it actually cost to run?

Solar with battery storage and a generator means no utility bill and no interconnect, and it also means the owner owns the maintenance. Panels, batteries and the generator all have service lives. A buyer should have the systems inspected and get the service history, which is in the equipment schedule released under NDA.

Can I really run tours and a farm store here?

The property has the road access, the mill, the roastery and a second dwelling to support it, and the farm already invites visitors informally. Commercial agritourism on A-5A agricultural land is subject to County of Hawaiʻi permitting, and a buyer should scope that with the Planning Department during diligence rather than assume it.

Why does the equipment matter so much in the price?

Because most Kona farms sell cherry or parchment and hand the margin to somebody else. This one is equipped to take fruit all the way to a sealed retail bag under its own certified organic label. That equipment, and the certification covering it, is what separates this from acreage.

Financing

Four ways buyers acquire a property like this.

A working farm with an operating business does not finance like a residence. The path a buyer chooses changes what they can borrow against and how the purchase is structured, so it is worth settling early.

Agricultural lending
RECOMMENDED PATH

Agricultural lenders underwrite the land, the improvements, the equipment and the operating business together, which is the only structure that recognizes what is actually being bought here. American AgCredit financing may be available to qualified buyers. Contact Linas Tavares at ltavares@agloan.com for program details.

1031 exchange

Accepted on this listing. A buyer rolling out of appreciated investment property can defer the gain into a working agricultural asset, then carry a fresh depreciable basis on the equipment and improvements going forward. Structure and eligibility are matters for the buyer’s qualified intermediary and CPA.

Jumbo financing

Conventional jumbo lending may be possible on the residential component for some buyers. NFM Lending, Alena Griffey (agriffey@nfmlending.com), has indicated jumbo financing could potentially be available. This route generally will not capture the equipment or the operating business.

Cash

Accepted. Proof of funds required to submit an offer.

Programs an incoming operator may be eligible to explore, subject to their own qualification: Farm Service Agency farm ownership and operating loans; USDA Organic Certification Cost Share; NRCS EQIP including its organic initiative; Hawaiʻi Department of Agriculture loan programs; and Transition to Organic Partnership Program technical assistance. Each carries its own qualification criteria and funding cycle.

Financing and tax structures described here are informational. Nothing on this page is lending, tax or legal advice, and every buyer should confirm terms and eligibility with their own lender, CPA and counsel.

Transaction readiness

The paperwork that usually stalls a farm sale is already done.

Agricultural transactions bog down on title work and diligence that should have started earlier. On this listing that groundwork was completed before the property reached the market.

Preliminary title report

Preliminary title work has been pulled and completed through Title Guaranty Escrow Services, Hilo. Escrow officer Shiy Brandt. A buyer is not waiting on a first look at title.

Listing status

Listing contract fully executed. MLS 732847, Hawaii Information Service.

Terms accepted

Cash, conventional and 1031 exchange. Proof of funds or lender preapproval required to submit an offer.

Disclosure

Seller disclosure form on file. One water tank was damaged during Hurricane Lala; repair is anticipated February to March 2027 and processing capacity is affected this season.

Entity structure

The land is held by the titleholding company and the certified organic operation runs as Kona RainForest Farms, LLC. How the operating entity and its certification transfer is a structuring question worth raising early with counsel.

Location

South Kona, mauka of the belt road.

87-2854 Hawaii Belt Road, Captain Cook, Hawaiʻi 96704. From Kailua-Kona, follow Hawaii Belt Road south through Captain Cook. The entrance is on the mauka side just past mile marker 95.