Coffee beans in a hand mill, an example of how smaller Maui farmers market their coffee at venues around the tri-isles. Courtesy of Maui Coffee Association.

If you want to know what all the coffee “buzz” is about, you’ll have a chance to learn on Sunday, March 6 at Maui Mall.

The Maui Coffee Association will present a day of free coffee sampling between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. in the Maui Mall courtyard.  There will be information on coffee growing, processing, tasting, and how to select coffees for purchase.

This event is jointly sponsored by The County of Maui, the Maui Mall, and Whole Foods Market Kahului, and will feature individual farm booths around the courtyard. Each farm will feature samples of their own estate coffees, and offer their own iced and/or hot brewed coffees for sale by the cup, as well as bags of the beans that go into making their beverages.

David Hanna at a booth at Montage in Kapalua, with a hand miller used to prepare coffee beans for winnowing and roasting. Courtesy of Maui Coffee Association.

Maui coffee beans are extremely diverse, grown from near sea level to halfway up Haleakala, and wet rainforest areas to dry desertlike lands. Whether grown on hundreds of acres or large backyards, from Hana to Kualapu‘u on Moloka‘i, Maui County coffees are considered among the best in the world.  Farmers invite you to taste and see why Maui Coffees are in such demand that supplies from individual farms can run out during any given year.

There will be demonstrations: an operating coffee roaster, and a Maui Coffee booth where your growing and production questions can be answered.

The event will also feature entertainment, with music in the morning, Maui Mall’s hula show from 11 a.m. to noon on the center stage and songs between 1:30 and 2:45 p.m. performed by Ainoa and Iliahi, members of the Maui Coffee Association.