The biggest commercial coffee distributor in Hawaii, Lion Coffee has brought back its roasting tours, which stopped during the pandemic.
On 45-minute tours of Lion Coffee’s Honolulu plant, guests learn the history of the company and the process of making coffee from beginning to end. “So seeing it go from, you know, a green bean on a pallet in a bag to get roasted in a big machine, and then also just smelling the roasted coffee the whole tour, too,” said Lion Coffee tour guide Makana David.
“We show you our Lion Coffee Museum,” David said. “You get to see our roastery and just the behind the scenes of how Lion Coffee came about and how we package the beans, the different brands that we help source coffee for. It’s a great experience. It’s like Willy Wonka’s coffee factory, so it’s pretty fun.”
Lion Coffee was started in the continental U.S. in the 1860s. Then, it was “purchased by a guy named James Delano, and he brought Lion Coffee from Toledo, Ohio, to Hawaii in the late 1900s,” David said.
Many people recognize the brand by its familiar lion logo.
The company sources beans from all over the world, including local farms in Kona on the Big Island. “In order for it to be considered a Kona bag of coffee, it has to have 10% of Kona in it, but we sell 100% Kona coffee,” David said. “Coffee connoisseurs consider Kona coffee … the bean, to be the top three in the world.”
At its museum, Lion Coffee displays memorabilia going back to the 1800s, including old coffee mugs and old logos. After the tour, guests get to sample the coffee. They also receive a keychain that they can only get on the tour.
The roasting tour costs $10 per person and they are limited to six guests per tour. It’s available in English and Japanese. English tours are held at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. on Wednesdays and Fridays.
