This 1969 episode of “Discovery,” a children’s American TV series produced by ABC and hosted by Bill Owen and Virginia Gibson, explores coffee production in Hawaii, detailing the harvesting and production process, one family’s experience, and the industry’s change over time. The film opens with a Japanese family picking coffee cherries (0:33). Owen, wearing a Hawaiian shirt, narrates in front of coffee plants. Ripe (red) and unripe (green) coffee cherries (2:04) are shown; the trees have white blossoms. Owen explains that Hawaii is the only place in the United States where coffee is grown commercially, due to its favorable climate; a map shows where it is grown, along a 21-mile stretch of the big island of Hawaii, in Kona, and is therefore called Kona coffee (2:26). Owen says coffee farmers are either “mauka,” on the mountain side, or “makai,” toward the sea. The three small towns in between are shown: Kainaliu, Kealakekua, and Captain Cook. The Captain Cook Sure Save Supermarket (3:20). An “H. Miyata” sign, marking the Hansa Miyata family coffee farm (3:54). Gibson stands in front of the Miyata family picking coffee; the family originally came from Japan but has lived in Hawaii for many years; their seven children help with farm work: Susan, Hansa’s daughter, attends Konawaena High School. The children pick coffee cherries in woven baskets (5:57). Once the cherries are in bags, they are placed on stands by the side of the road for a collection truck to pick up. Owen explains how the Miyatas produce “parchment coffee:” he holds a coffee cherry with a thin inner layer, called “silver skin,” (7:38) around the seed; outside the skin is a tough, parchment-like layer. Mr. Hansa Miyata, farm owner and director of the Pacific Coffee Coop, shows the pulping process: coffee cherries and water are fed into a pulping machine, where a conveyor carries them to the pulper. They soak in brine overnight, sun dry, and dry in an air dryer (8:04). Gibson stands in front of the Sunset Coffee Milling Company mill (9:25), where the cherries’ inner skins are removed, creating dry, un-roasted coffee called “green coffee.” Workers process coffee cherries in the mill (9:56). Bags of coffee go down a conveyor belt (10:24). Owen narrates in front of the former Kamigaki Coffee Mill (11:18); it closed in March 1962 due to high costs and labor shortages; Owen says the Hawaii coffee industry is declining due to similar challenges. Hansa walks with a basket next to his son, Bruce. Owen stands in front of the University of Hawaii’s Cooperative Extension Service at Kainaliu (12:38), which provides agricultural education to farmers. Tropical Agriculture Extension Supervisor John Iwani holds a chainsaw-like gadget called a coffee shaker (12:56), designed to help shake coffee cherries from trees. An engineer demonstrates a separator (14:11) to help sort unripe cherries from ripe ones. The Kona Inn in Kailua is shown (15:28), where two of the Miyata women work. Judith uses a typewriter and her mother works in the kitchen. Gibson stands in front of Kona Krafts, a rehabilitation center for elderly or disabled people (16:49) owned by Yash Taguchi, who gave up coffee growing due to its economic difficulties; students at the center fashion coffee wood into walking sticks. Schoolchildren play outside; Gibson explains that schools used to run according to the coffee harvest schedule, but now the schedule offers multiple harvest slots. Owen, in front of macadamia nut trees, explains that many coffee farmers are trying to pivot to macadamia nut farming (19:55). The episode ends with Owen and Gibson boarding a United airplane. Credits: Transportation provided by United Airlines; Executive Producer Jules Power; Written by Joseph Hurley; Produced and directed by Daniel Wilson; Cameraman George Tahara; Hotel accommodations provided by Kona Inn, Kailua, Kona, Hawaii; produced in consultation with National Education Association and American Library Association.

Motion picture films don’t last forever; many have already been lost or destroyed. For almost two decades, we’ve worked to collect, scan and preserve the world as it was captured on 35mm, 16mm and 8mm movies — including home movies, industrial films, and other non-fiction. If you have endangered films you’d like to have scanned, or wish to donate celluloid to Periscope Film so that we can share them with the world, we’d love to hear from you. Contact us via the weblink below.

This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com