Tommy never planned to be the fourth-generation steward of Kona’s most storied coffee farm. After four decades of farming, he’s ready to start anew.
Tommy didn’t grow up dreaming about coffee. He grew up on a dairy in Waimea and a cattle ranch in Kona, took apart every toy he had before he ever played with it, dreamed of diesel engines, and was halfway through college in Oregon when his father called and said, “Aren’t you done yet? Come home.”
That was 1979. By 1985, the cattle market had collapsed, the family ranch had been sold, and his father decided to grow coffee on 400 acres his family had owned for over a century. “I don’t know anything about coffee,” Tommy told him. “We’re going to learn,” his father declared. “It’s in our blood.”
Forty years later, Tommy runs Greenwell Farms—a name his great-grandfather, Henry Nicholas Greenwell, put on the global map when he carried Kona coffee to the 1873 World’s Fair in Vienna.
Ask Tommy what he does, and he won’t lead with legacy. He’ll tell you about his wife, Jennifer, whom he met when she was selling shoes at Nordstrom in the King Kamehameha Hotel. “Everybody loved her.” He’ll tell you about his three-year-old granddaughter and how Jennifer is finally trying to retire so she can spend more time with her. He’ll tell you about his son, who used to sneak out of the house in his diaper to rake coffee at the mill. He still works on the farm.
Tommy is one of the most important figures in Hawaiian agriculture. He helped invent a mechanical coffee harvester that is now used worldwide. He’s a founding board member of the Hawaiʻi Coffee Association. He helped launch the Synergistic Hawaiʻi Agricultural Council, a nonprofit that channels Federal Farm Bill funds to Hawaiʻi’s coffee, papaya, macadamia nut and floral industries. He hosts roundtables for coffee farmers in Kona—competitors included—to share what he’s learned about pests, pruning and coffee processing. Since 1999, he has cultivated numerous varieties of coffee trees, especially those resistant to insects and fungi. Greenwell Farms won the 2025 Hawaiʻi Coffee Association cupping contest with one of its cultivars, “Mamo” (a premium Kona coffee), in the Kona Division. Remarkably, Tommy is the only commercial black pepper farmer in the United States. “It completely sells out about a week after the last harvest.”
Now there’s a new, glitzier chapter: This spring, Tommy is opening “Revered” on Kuakini Highway, near Kona Town. It’s a joint venture with Mark Hall, a good friend and long-time Kona resident. Hall was part of the team that created the Monster Energy Drink brand. Built on a former 70-acre orchid farm, the appointment-only tasting room (with a magnificent, unobstructed ocean view) is a love letter to specialty coffees and unique liquors. By invitation only, small groups will sample flights of distinct coffees. They will tour a coffee farm that Tommy planted on-site. They will learn how the nuances of different processing techniques lead to distinct coffee flavors. “They will see and taste what makes or breaks a cup of coffee.”
Alongside the coffee, as a labor of love and tribute to Hawaiʻi, the facility will produce and sell “Okolehao,” a traditional Hawaiian spirit distilled from ti root. It’s been around since the late 1700s. Many other coffee-based liquors will also be produced on-site. People can tour the complex, including viewing the impressive distilling equipment.
The experience will be immersive and elegant. People can perk up, chill out or both. The building is the most beautiful building in Kona, if not the entire island. Like Tommy, the project is ambitious yet fully grounded in Kona’s dirt. As Tommy says, “You gotta dream big to get something small.”
Learn more at GreenwellFarms.com | Revered@coffee.com.
Henry Nicholas Greenwell, put on the global map when he carried Kona coffee to the 1873 World’s Fair in Vienna.
As a labor of love and tribute to Hawaiʻi, the facility will produce and sell “Okolehao,” a traditional Hawaiian spirit distilled from ti root.