Cafe Florian

SPECIALTY

Cafe Florian is a specialty coffee shop located in Captain Cook, HI. Check in here with the Pulled Coffee app to earn real cash rewards. Specialty shops count toward all challenges including Pulled 50, Pulled 100, and Pulled 300.

Caffe Florian sits on Mamalahoa Highway in Kealakekua, ten minutes south of Keauhou, opened in 2014 by Italian-born Rita and her husband Nick. They own the coffee plantation. They roast the beans. Rita bakes the pastries every morning, including a lilikoi tart that has built its own quiet reputation. The patio looks out over greenery toward the Kona coast, with humpback sightings in season. Service runs warm. Plates are real, silverware is real, and Rita will explain the cinnamon dulce coffee if you ask. Mornings here pull South Kona regulars on the way to work, Italian travelers who recognize the cappuccino on first sip, and visitors who pulled off the highway for a bathroom and ended up ordering breakfast. The artichoke panini on sourdough moves volume at lunch. Order the cappuccino if you want a Kona morning poured by someone who actually trained on the form. Order the lilikoi tart and an espresso if you came for the patio and the whales.

About Captain Cook

Captain Cook is a coffee town in the literal sense. The settlement sits inside the heart of the Kona coffee belt, on the western slope of Hualalai and Mauna Loa, with Mamalahoa Highway running through it as the main artery. Most operations here are working farms with a tasting bar attached. Hala Tree Coffee sits on six acres just off Mamalahoa, USDA certified organic in a region where most estates skip the paperwork, with coffee grown, processed, and roasted on the property and free farm tours that end at a tasting bar.

The Mamalahoa register defines the town. The Coffee Shack hangs off the mauka side of the highway, perched 1,400 feet above Kealakekua Bay with twenty-six miles of Kona coastline laid out below the lanai. The building dates to the 1930s, originally housing for coffee pickers, later a Buddhist meeting place, sold to its current family in 2000. The kitchen runs 100% Kona alongside breakfast and lunch. Kona Joe Coffee a few minutes north grows trees on trellises trained along wire the way Cabernet vines are trained in Edna Valley, the only operation of its kind in Kona, founded by California wine-family operator Joe Alban.

The smaller farms anchor the rest of the map. White Dog Coffee, run by Heath and Jason on the western slope of Hualalai, roasts every batch to order, with macadamia trees interplanted between the rows. Cafe Florian a few minutes south on Mamalahoa Highway in Kealakekua opened in 2014 with Italian-born Rita and her husband Nick, who own the plantation and roast the beans, with a lilikoi tart that has built its own quiet reputation. The Pulled directory tracks 10 specialty rooms in Captain Cook proper.