You Can Now Take Honolulu Museum of Art’s Custom Coffee Blend Home with You

The HoMA Signature Blend combines Maui coffee with artsy packaging.

By Lesa Griffith

Editor’s Note: Through our partnership with the Honolulu Museum of Art, HONOLULU Magazine publishes a monthly blog written by Lesa Griffith, the museum’s communications director and a talented Hawai‘i writer on arts, culture and food.

HoMA Signature Blend is now available in the Honolulu Museum of Art shops.

Photo: Shuzo Uemoto

Last year, the Honolulu Museum of Art started serving its own custom blend of Maui and Costa Rican coffee at its café and coffee bar. The java is so good, museum retail manager Cori Mackie decided it would make a great gift to stock in the Honolulu Museum of Art shops. The handsomely packaged result is now available at both museum locations, on Beretania Street and at Spalding House in Makiki.

SEE ALSO: Honolulu Museum of Art’s New Brunch Is a Hidden Gem

Mackie collaborated with interim food and beverage manager Josh Hancock and museum senior graphic designer Anjali Lee to create the perfect omiyage. Lee designed labels featuring two iconic works—the 11th-century statue of “Guanyin” and Charles Bartlett’s print “Surf-Riders”—that are representative of the museum’s Asian and Western collections, as well as of Hawai‘i’s most famous sport.

Hancock wanted to introduce a house brew and showcase one of Hawai‘i’s best coffees in the process. He knew he wanted to work with Kona Coffee Purveyors, and selected Maui coffee for its subtle sweetness and toasted-nut characteristics.

“It pairs very well with the silky body and bittersweet chocolate notes found in Costa Rican coffee,” he explains. “We tasted and cupped dozens of coffee varieties and blends at Kona Coffee Purveyors’ state-of-the-art roasting facility and, with the help of owners Jackie and Ray Suiter, were able to create a blend that I think is unique and complex, yet delicious and familiar to coffee lovers.” The new HoMA Signature Blend is roasted exclusively for the museum by Kona Coffee Purveyors.

The Honolulu Museum of Art Coffee Bar uses its signature blend to make Thai iced coffee.

Photo: Lianne Rozzelle

The HoMA Signature Blend is served at the HoMA Coffee Bar, featured in the cold brew, iced Thai and Aeropress coffee drinks; and at the HoMA Café as brewed hot coffee and iced coffee. It will be available soon at the Spalding House Café.

Freshly roasted beans are hand-packed weekly at the museum. The HoMA Signature Blend costs $14.99 for 6 ounces.

Honolulu Museum of Art, 900 S. Beretania St., Café and Coffee Bar: (808) 532-8734; Shop: (808) 532-8703

Lesa Griffith is director of communications at the Honolulu Museum of Art. Born in Honolulu, one of her early seminal art experiences was at the Honolulu Museum of Art, when on a field trip her high school art history teacher pointed out that the ermine cape in Whistler’s Portrait of Lady Meux was not just a cape—it was visual signage leading viewers’ eyes through the painting.