I have had some good Kona. The main reason why it is so expensive is that it is grown in the USA, where the workers are paid a minimum wage, and the other costs of production are more expensive then in, say, Sumatra or Ethiopia. My coffee co-op distributes Kona on occasion, and a lot of us think that we can get better coffee cheaper from other areas of the globe. Most of the Kona production goes to the tourist trade or to Japan. Specialty coffee buyers generally bypass it.
