Nago, Okinawa Pref. ¨C Tadaaki Miyagi runs Burikina, an organic coffee farm in Nago, a city on the Motobu Peninsula that juts out from the northwest corner of Okinawa Prefecture¡¯s main island. After he registered his lot with the Coffee Quality Institute (CQI) two years ago, he realized his was the smallest farm in the world to receive the institute¡¯s coveted Q Grade, a specialty certification for coffee beans.
Miyagi, who hails from the prefectural capital of Naha, grows around 300 coffee trees in a field dotted with shikuwasa citrus trees, shade-giving banana trees and wind-buffering dracaena plants. He is one of only a handful of coffee producers in Japan whose beans have earned the Q Grade.
¡°Ada Farm in the town of Kunigami achieved the first Q Grade, followed by myself and Shirase Coffee Farm in Kumejima,¡± he says. ¡°Nobody had expected that specialty grade coffee could be produced in Okinawa because of our region¡¯s low elevation and high latitude, but we proved it was possible.¡±
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