PlantFiles: Kona Coffee
Coffea arabica 'Kona'

Kona coffee is not a cultivar, but a locale. Its like saying a Napa Cabernet; Napa is a valley, not the cultivar.

I have not grown this plant.

If not pruned the plants can reach a height of 30 feet. Usually, they are pruned to about 6 feet. The main reason for pruning is to to have an abundance of blooms because the blossoms are borne on new wood. Another reason is to keep the trees to a size that can readily be picked. It prefers a pH of 5 to 6 is preferred with chlorosis occurring when the pH is above 7. Comparable to avocado, watering needs to be consistent with a dry period to induce blooming and it is essential that the soil must be well draining. Coffee can adapt to full sun; however, they are usually grown in filtered shade. Although the plants will bloom and produce fruit without being fertilized, to obtain the best results, they should be fed every 2 weeks from March to October, and then monthly from November through February using a soluble, all purpose (10-10-10) fertilizer.

Coffee could be the most important plant in the world, yet many people don't even know what it looks like. It is a beautiful plant with glossy dark green leaves and petite scented white flowers. It is in the Rubiaceae family with Gardenia and Galium. It requires acidic soil just like Gardenia's and will not do well with any thing but. Frost and direct hot sunny spots will do damage. The coffee belt on the big Island of Hawai'i, known as Kona produces some of the best coffee in the world. The conditions are perfect. These conditions consist of rich volcanic soil from Mona Loa, ideal sunny mornings followed by cloudy afternoons, constant mild temperature's year round and sixty to eighty inches of rain. If you have these conditions your in luck, for the rest of us coffee makes a great house plant or if you live in So California of So Florida it can be grown outside just not to perfection. Kona coffee as I understand it, is Coffea arabica that has been grown in Kona since the 1850s and has over the years developed its own style and complexity that makes it truly unique and expensive.