Qualla: Kona Coffee Living History Farm

Kona Coffee Living History Farm: Introduction

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ekrem Canli, CC BY-SA 4.0. Daisaku Uchida arrived in Hawaii from southern Japan on September 27, 1906, nineteen years old and bound by a three-year sugar contract at Lihue Plantation on Kauai. When the contract expired, he did what tens of thousands of Japanese immigrants did: he left the plantation and started over. On 5.5 acres of Kona hillside, leased from the Greenwell family, he built a coffee farm, a farmhouse, and a life that lasted nearly a century. He died in 1986 at the age of 99. Today his farm is a living history museum, and the coffee trees still produce.

Image: Ekrem Canli | CC BY-SA 4.0

Kona Coffee Living History Farm: Contracts and New Beginnings

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Frank Schulenburg, CC BY-SA 3.0. Between 1868 and 1924, more than 140,000 Japanese workers came to Hawaii under labor contracts with sugarcane plantations. The work was grueling, the pay minimal, and the contracts binding. But when those contracts expired, many workers chose to stay -- not on the plantations, bu...

Image: Frank Schulenburg | CC BY-SA 3.0

Kona Coffee Living History Farm: A Family Rooted in Volcanic Soil

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ekrem Canli, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Uchidas expanded the farm and built a new house in 1925. Six children were born on the property -- three in the original house and three in the replacement. The land belonged to the Greenwell family, whose patriarch Henry Nicholas Greenwell had been trading in Kona coffee sin...

Image: Ekrem Canli | CC BY-SA 4.0

Kona Coffee Living History Farm: Where the Orchard Tells the Story

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kona Historical Society, CC BY-SA 3.0. The farm is now an open-air museum operated by the Kona Historical Society, depicting daily life during the 1920-1945 period. Visitors walk through the coffee orchard, the original farmhouse, and the hand-operated coffee mill. Costumed interpreters bring the era to life at schedu...

Image: Kona Historical Society | CC BY-SA 3.0