Allan relates the history of Aikane Kona Coffee:

"When I was a biochemistry student at UC Berkeley in 1976, I began drinking coffee to be more functional in my early morning organic chemistry classes. Soon, I became aware of the gourmet side to coffee, which at that time was just becoming recognized in the Bay Area, led largely by Peet's Coffee shop in North Berkeley’s ’Gourmet Ghetto‘. Before I knew it, I was preparing drip coffee by the cup with a Melitta cone and filter, grinding whole beans for each brewing, and enjoying various coffees available from around the world."

"In 1979, I introduced Tom to gourmet coffee when the two of us met at the University of Hawaii during my medical program.  Up until this time, Tom had dismissed coffee as an insipid brew unfit for a discerning palate.  But having learned otherwise, we began to enjoy and sample together the various coffees available in Hawaii."

"During this time, America was waking up to gourmet coffee.  When I moved to Seattle for my medical residency, I survived on coffee from a small shop near my home where the original Starbucks was diligently cultivating this increasing interest.  I sampled and enjoyed the growing range of gourmet coffee available in the Northwest.  While finishing my medical training at Harvard during the early 90's, I also enjoyed coffee available from The Coffee Connection, a retail chain raising fine coffee appreciation and availability in the New England area long before it became part of the national expansion of Starbucks."

"In 1995 I returned to Hawaii to open a clinical practice in allergy and immunology.  Looking for a Big Island residence convenient to my offices, we settled on a simply designed, relaxing home tucked among Ohia trees on the west slope of Hualalai volcano at 2000 feet elevation overlooking the town of Kailua-Kona and the West Hawaii coastline.  The land is situated in the north end of the prime coffee growing area of the Big Island and at a perfect elevation for growing Kona coffee."

"Now, located in the Kona coffee belt and sharing an interest in gourmet coffee, we could not resist the opportunity that unfolded before us.  It became our aspiration to personally shepherd our own gourmet coffee from bean to perfect cup.  With Tom's experience of managing his family farm in Tennessee from the age of eleven, and my complimentary interest in coffee and horticulture, we embarked on establishing an estate Kona coffee farm, Aikane Kona Coffee."

"In 1997, we selected the four acres of the our six-and-a-half acres lacking ohia forest to become the coffee farm.  Fortunately, even though this land had been pasture of the old cattle ranch for years, there remained generous pockets of rich old forest soil interspersed with the lava rock, allowing us to create a fertile orchard bed.  We planted 1200 well nurtured Coffea arabica, 'Guatemalan' (variety typica) trees in November of 1997.  In 1999 we sampled the first crop and to our great excitement; the resulting coffee was superb.  Our first substantial harvest was in 2000."

"All of our coffee is carefully grown, harvested by hand at its peak ripeness, wet milled, fermented and sun dried, then custom roasted to bring out the handsome flavors of Kona coffee.  Enjoy!"