KAILUA, KONA — It takes only minutes every morning to brew up a java jolt, but the coffee-growing area of Kona is taking 10 days to properly honor the bean.

The 38th Kona Coffee Cultural Festival is in full swing this week, with parades and pageants, workshops, farm tours and seminars. The festival began Friday.

In addition to honoring Kona's coffee pioneers and celebrating 180 years of harvests along the Kona-Holualoa-Captain Cook corridor, the festival typically draws between 16,000 and 18,000 caffeine connoisseurs.

Highlights include a coffee-picking contest, barista competition and a panel of expert tasters bestowing the year's blue ribbon on one farm.

The festival not only remains popular with locals — including farmers looking for roasting tips — but has earned an international reputation. In Japan, scores of people enter a lottery to win a trip to the festival. A crew of "apple-arians" regularly makes the journey from Wenatchee, Wash., to march in the grand parade.

Jack and Diane Malloy, retirees from Portland, Ore., schedule their annual vacation around the festival. "We love good coffee, and we love to mingle with the local people. It's a highlight for us," Diane Malloy said.

Last year, the Hawai'i Tourism Authority added the event to its major festivals program.

This year, print and television media are expected from not only from across Hawai'i and the Mainland, but from Japan, New Zealand and Canada.

The state committed $225,000 over a three-year period, kicking in $75,000 annually beginning in 2007.

Diane Ley, deputy director of the county Office of Research and Development, said the festival celebrates the entire agriculture community. "The coffee sector is quite vibrant," she said. "Some people have been involved for years and years and some have only recently moved here. This really connects the old-timers with the newcomers."