Silver Cloud coffee from Kaʻū, Hawaiʻi is meticulously crafted in every step of the process so that the finest quality beans are selected, roasted, and packaged to provide the highest quality cup of coffee.
Farm Profile
Farm Owner: Miles Mayne
Acreage: 15 acres
Elevation: 2,200 ft
Coffee Varietals: Typica, Red Caturra, Red Catuai, Geisha
Processing Methods: Washed, Natural, Honey
How did you become a coffee farmer?
I was born into a marginal farming family but always dreamt of a brighter future. The future was inspired by my father’s small coffee and cardamom estate in the Western Ghats of India. Fate however, took me down the oil and gas trail to the Middle East, Asia, Africa and North America. Three decades later after retirement, I know it was time to go back to my first passion. Coffee brings my heart home!!
Years in coffee:
I have been associated with coffee growing since childhood, but have been actively farming since 2014.
What are your biggest challenges as a coffee farmer?
People around the world rely on coffee to get their morning fix. Yet many don’t realize the impact their coffee drinking habit has on coffee farmers in South America, Asia and Africa. Specifically, the farmers who live in poverty and are subject to unethical business practices and human right abuses.
Under the free market system, there are a plethora of brokers, middle-men, and agents in the coffee supply chain, who perpetuate low prices and pit coffee farmers against each other. These business practices that fuel corporate profits have caused entire coffee farming communities to disappear.
To combat this situation, we need a sustained education campaign aimed at consumers. By informing consumers of the truth behind coffee production, they can help eliminate unethical business practices by choosing to purchase coffee that is ethically sourced.
What are your biggest joys as a coffee farmer?
I travelled the globe looking for the perfect location for my coffee farm and found paradise in Wood Valley, which nestles on the slopes of the volcano Mauna Loa and when the air temperature drops to the dew point, the colder heavier air drains into the valley and the farm in the form of a silver mist. When this happens, the mist forms a delicate drapery over the farm with all the coffee trees looking like sentinels floating above the mist. It is an amazing experience that makes your soul sing.
What does coffee mean to you?
After having spent 3 decades in the Oil & Gas industry, what better choice to make but get involved in the second most traded agricultural product: Coffee. There is so much to know about coffee: biology, growing and processing methods, roasting techniques, flavours and brewing. Coffee is such a complex drink, that you can spend a life time learning about it and in my case a retirement project for a life time. I am passionate about what I do.
Where can your coffee be found for purchase?
Anything else you'd like to tell us about your coffee journey?
Come visit the farm and I will tell you what it takes to be a coffee farmer.