Enjoy a Coffee Tasting, Tour and Brunch at Oʻo Farm on Maui
Oʻo Farm offers morning and afternoon farm-to-table experiences every week Monday to Friday.
Our morning began on a verdant mountaintop overlooking central and west Maui with hot coffee in hand. As we tasted estate-grown Kaʻū, a honey-processed estate blend and a Mokka grown in Kāʻanapali, Molly Leoso, one of the farmers and our tour guide from Oʻo Farm, walked us through the process of coffeemaking.
“I often liken it to winemaking,” Leoso said. “The soil affects it, how you harvest it. Every process along the way will kind of branch out into a different flavor profile.”
Oʻo Farm in Upcountry Maui has been hosting farm tours since 2007. In addition to producing bean-to-cup coffee, the upcountry farm boasts fruit trees, vegetable gardens, flowers and an outdoor kitchen and dining space. The format is simple: Learn where your food comes from, then eat it.
According to Leoso, owners Louis Coulombe and Stephan Bel-Robert discovered the 8-acre property while paragliding. At the time they owned Pacificʻo on the Beach, an ocean-front restaurant that burned down in the Lahaina wildfires in August 2023. What they planted at Oʻo Farm, they harvested for their restaurant in Lahaina. With no plans to re-open Pacific’o, the farm now distributes Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) boxes and supplies its kitchen for onsite farm-to-table dining experiences.
Today, Oʻo Farm cultivates about 130 crops in rotation and offers two different tours: a seed-to-cup coffee and brunch experience—which we’re on—and a farm-to-table lunch and farmer field walk. Both tours make stops throughout the farm and culminates with a multicourse meal prepared by the farm chef and served family style.
Oʻo Farm on Maui grows artichokes.
Photo: Sarah Burchard
After properly caffeinated, Leoso led us out of the open-air building where they dry, roast, package and sample coffee and onto the farm. At first, she pointed out the typical rows of root vegetables, lettuce, fennel and corn, but as we trampled through the rain-kissed fields I saw crops I’d never seen on Oʻahu, such as artichokes, wild raspberries and olives. Leoso stopped frequently to rip off a handful of pineapple sage leaves or allspice berries for us to taste, or explain methods the farm uses to regenerate its soil, such as crop rotation and composting. We walked through orchards of lemons, tangelos, naval oranges, avocado, loquats, finger limes and, of course, coffee berries, all farmed without chemical herbicides or pesticides.
Mysore raspberry bushes at Oʻo Farm on Maui.
Photo: Sarah Burchard
“We’re at 3,500 feet,” Leoso said. “It’s kind of perfect growing conditions up here. Just because of the cloud cover we get, we still get enough heat, a little bit of rainfall. You’ll see a lot of Ag land in this little pocket here.”
The tour ended at the outdoor kitchen where we watched a pour-over demonstration and enjoyed a three-course brunch presented by in-house chef Jamie Dougherty. As we sipped coffee, Dougherty brought out platters of freshly baked focaccia drizzled with estate-made olive oil and a salad of farm-grown lettuces, fennel, zucchini and daikon tossed in a wild raspberry vinaigrette.
Local coffee is served at Oʻo Farm on Maui.
Photo: Sarah Burchard
Next, he presented a frittata made with local free range eggs, roasted chayote squash, onion and three types of kale, finished with a garlic-chive puree. Sharing the plate was a swipe of magenta beet spread, tricolor carrots, baby broccolini and bush beans. And for dessert, honey-cinnamon buns with fresh fruit. There was so much food, we took leftovers home, as we couldn’t bare to let any of the farmers’ and chef’s delectable hard work go to waste.
A frittata made with farm-fresh veggies at Oʻo Farm on Maui.
Photo: Sarah Burchard
Oʻo, like many Hawaiian words, has several translations. It is the name of an extinct Hawaiian bird spelled ʻōʻō, it is a tool used for planting trees and it is a term that loosely translates to “ripen” or “mature.” As Oʻo Farm, like the rest of Maui, has had to deal with great losses after the wildfires, the ability to start anew and continue to grow is what keeps this farm a destination not to be missed.
O’o Farms hosts coffee and brunch ($135 + tax and gratuity) and lunch ($150 + tax and gratuity) tours Monday through Friday at 8:30 and 10:30 a.m. Special pricing for kamaʻāina and children available. Visit oofarm.com for more information and to book reservations.
651 Waipoli Road, Kula, Maui, (808) 856-0141, oofarm.com
