Fred Hokada owns Downtown Coffee in Honolulu, specializing in Hawaiian coffee that he roasts, brews and sells on-site and supplies to nearby cafes like Gorilla in the Cafe. Wife Fumiko creates pastries like her Azuki Torte and Matcha Torte with bamboo charcoal shortbread crust. We met on the patio at Downtown Coffee’s Fort Street Mall headquarters, and Fred Hokada shared several caffeinated insights.

At what point did you know that you would work with coffee for a living?

I learned a lot about coffee working at Honolulu Coffee Company at the Moana Surfrider…Working there was a really, really great experience. Ray Suiter hired me. He and his family were the ones who created Honolulu Coffee Company, and working under him, I learned a lot. I learned to work really hard, I learned about coffee, I learned about working with people. I learned a little bit about managing people. My experience there is what brought me to coffee.

What brought you to Downtown Coffee?

An opportunity to have my own coffee place and be able to roast my own coffee.

Why was that important to you?

Having learned about coffee at Honolulu Coffee Company, I learned how important roasting can be. While I was there, I worked with Charles Nelson. He’s the one who took over this place and made it Downtown Coffee. It used to be called Kevin’s Coffee. Charles was very, very passionate about coffee, and I learned a lot about coffee through him. Through him, I learned about home roasting. That was a really, really good learning experience. I got a roaster from Sweet Maria’s. Actually, I first tried home roasting with an air roaster, like an old popcorn popper. I was reading about it on Sweet Maria’s, and talking to Charles about it. At Kona Coffee Company, we learned how Charles had become really good friends, really passionate about coffee, and when he let me know he was going to be moving to Japan to be closer to his wife’s family – his wife’s also from Japan. Then I asked him to sell me Downtown. Running it myself was a new experience.

What’s your favorite part of owning and operating a coffee roasting company and café?

I get to learn a lot about the different Hawaiian coffees and different coffees in general. I learned a lot about the local farmers, being able to work with the local farmers and learn about how they produce coffee. Before coming here, I knew very little about processing techniques. Since that time, we’ve also learned a lot about processing techniques, even through barista competitions. A lot of baristas mention how coffees were processed and specific statistics about what altitude they were picked at, what varieties they are, and how they were roasted. The timing was really good. It’s been two-and-a-half years since I took over. It seems like a lot has happened in that time.

What’s the biggest challenge about operating a coffee company?

Making ends meet.

What will it take to make the Honolulu coffee scene great, if it isn’t already?

It seems like we’re doing pretty good right now. There’s a big movement for locally produced food and locally produced items and locally produced goods and services. Things are going really well right now. We’ve got a lot of good coffee shops just in downtown.

Fumiko Hokada: Hawaii is a big coffee producing area, and my impression is before Kona is the most famous, and other styles, they don’t know about. Ka’u is getting better and more competitive with Kona. It’s important to introduce people to all sorts of different Hawaiian coffees, not only Kona, but also all kinds of international varieties. More people don’t know that we have all sorts of varieties in Hawaii, not only Kona…We can introduce lots of different islands’ coffee. That’s our mission. People can enjoy coffees from here, not just Brazil and Africa.

Yeah, I think the thing that would make the scene great is if all the local people knew more detail or more specifically about all the local coffees that are available, how they’re similar and also very different. And if there were more places locally to enjoy all those different varieties of coffees, that would make it really great.

Describe a typical coffee consumption day for you, from when you wake up to when you go to bed.

Usually it’s just tasting coffee. Usually I’ll open the store. We open at 6, so I’ll start my tasting with a medium roast blend, then a dark roast blend, then a light roast blend, then the espresso, and sometimes tasting a latte or macchiato. I’m usually trying to control how much caffeine I have. I also taste my decaf espresso. When I want to enjoy a cup of coffee, usually I’ll choose an Americano.

How come?

Or French press. I like the texture, the body of those coffees.

Do you ever make coffee at home?

Yes.

What do you prefer to brew on at home?

At home, ease of use is very important to us, so we have a push-button espresso machine. If we’re tasting a really special coffee, we’ll do a drip coffee. We always enjoy the French press decaf coffee at my sister’s house. Whenever we go for dinner, we have decaf coffee as French press. That comes out really nice.

What sort of music do you like to listen to at Downtown Coffee?

Here, we’re very fortunate to have two large radio stations upstairs, two companies with 10 different radio stations. We usually listen to one of the Hawaiian radio stations, or one of the jazz music stations, or one of the J-Pop music stations, or one of the K-Pop music stations. We’re able to support our customers by playing their music. Usually something upbeat, something fun or something jazzy.

If you could work at another coffee bar for one day, what would it be? It could be anywhere.

Could I choose a few? One would be Intelligentsia in Chicago. Charles sent me a link to the video of the Monadnock, where they do hundreds of pourover coffees per day. That really impressed me. Either at that location, or at Intelligentsia [Venice] where they have individual barista stations. There, or at Streamers in Tokyo. He was the 2008 Millrock Latte Art winner.

If you could only have one more shot of espresso, who would make it for you?

I guess I should say Pete Licata.