The Kauaʻi Chocolate & Coffee Festival is a fall tasting event at Kilohana Plantation, just outside Līhuʻe. As of this July update, do not lock flights or lodging around an assumed 2026 date until the official festival site posts the next confirmed calendar details. Entry to the festival grounds has historically been free, while chocolate and coffee samples require a separate tasting passport. The festival ticket page is the page to watch for passport sales.

This is a rare chance to taste Hawaiʻi-grown chocolate and coffee together in one place. The Big Island's Kona and Kaʻū coffee districts get most of the ink, but Kauaʻi has a serious coffee story of its own. Cacao, the tree that gives you chocolate, grows on all four main islands now (CTAHR confirms cacao farms on Kauaʻi, Oʻahu, Maui, and Hawaiʻi Island). At Kilohana, you can walk between tasting tables from local farms and makers in one afternoon. If you're on Kauaʻi for the shoulder-season window (see our fall value window notes for why September and October run cheap on Kauaʻi), this is the kind of day to watch for.

The festival has used Kilohana Plantation, 3-2087 Kaumualiʻi Highway, about a mile and a half west of downtown Līhuʻe on the highway toward Poʻipū. Expect outdoor-event conditions: warm sun, trade-wind breezes, and the possibility of a quick passing shower. A hat and reef-safe sunscreen do more for you than a jacket.

The past shape of the day has been vendor tents, tasting stations for chocolate makers and coffee growers, live entertainment, demonstrations, craft vendors, and food beyond the passport samples. Treat those as planning expectations, not a final 2026 program. The current vendor list, hours, and ticket terms should come from the official site once the organizer posts them.

Read this part twice. Entry to the festival is free, but the tasting passport is a separate paid ticket, and it's the whole reason most food-focused travelers come. The festival's tickets page currently says passport tickets are coming soon, so set a reminder to check the page rather than waiting until you land on Kauaʻi.

What you get for the passport price is a walking flight: small tastings from participating chocolate makers and coffee growers, sampled at their tables and paired with quick conversations about how each product is made. That's the part you cannot recreate by buying a bag of beans or a bar of chocolate after the trip.

A tactical note: buy the passport once tickets go on sale (watch the festival site through late summer), and buy for everyone in your party who plans to taste. Sharing a single passport across two adults is technically an option and practically miserable. The pours are small on purpose, and the fun is in cross-comparing while your travel partner does the same. For children and non-tasters, check the festival ticket page again once 2026 passport terms are posted.

Kilohana is a historic plantation estate centered on a 1935 Tudor-style mansion built for Gaylord Parke Wilcox. The mansion has been an event and dining venue for decades, and the surrounding grounds host the Kauaʻi Plantation Railway, the Koloa Rum Company tasting room, and Gaylord's restaurant. On a normal day it is already a working visitor stop. On festival day it becomes a more crowded local gathering place.

What that means practically: the grounds are set up for foot traffic and people slowing down. Bathrooms are permanent, not port-a-lets. Parking is on-property. Strollers roll fine on the main paths, though the outer lawns get bumpy. If you have relatives who need to sit for stretches, there are plenty of shaded benches and picnic-table clusters around the mansion; you don't have to keep moving to be part of the day.

The participating list changes year to year, but the appeal is consistent. On the coffee side you get a working sample of Hawaiʻi coffee beyond the Kona shorthand, including Kauaʻi-grown coffee when local vendors participate. Tasting more than one Hawaiʻi coffee region on the same afternoon teaches you more than reading about the differences. Once you're hooked, our Hawaiʻi coffee farm tours guide covers where to visit growers at their own farms across the state.

On the chocolate side you get Hawaiʻi cacao, which is the story people know least. Cacao trees grow across the islands now. The acreage is still tiny against global chocolate production, but Hawaiʻi bean-to-bar makers turn local harvests into bars with real island character. Ask the makers what percentage cacao they're pouring; the sixty-percent bars taste like a completely different food than the eighty-fives.

The festival itself is a one-day Sunday anchor. If Friday or Saturday is free too, Kauaʻi in mid-October rewards a low-key itinerary. Get sunrise at Poʻipū, take a coffee break on the south side near Kauaʻi's largest coffee acreage, and drive Waimea Canyon in the late morning before the afternoon clouds close in over Kōkeʻe. Save Sunday for a slow lap of Kilohana. You'll be on your feet a while.

A weather note: October usually marks the transition from Kauaʻi's dry season into the wetter winter pattern. The North Shore gets wetter first; the South Shore stays drier through the first half of the month (see our wet-season guide for the details). Book your lodging on the South Shore if you can, and you'll be in the drier quadrant of the island for the festival and everything within a half-hour drive of it.

Bonus for fall planners: the Eo e Emalani i Alakaʻi festival is a cultural procession in the Kōkeʻe mountains that honors Queen Emma's 1871 journey. Its final annual date should be checked with Hui o Laka and the Kōkeʻe Museum calendar before you build travel around it. It is not the same trip for most visitors, but it is worth knowing about if you are choosing between an October food-and-farm trip and a later fall cultural trip. Our Eo e Emalani visitor guide explains why that event matters.

• Watch for the tasting passport. It's the difference between sampling and just browsing. The festival ticket page currently says passport sales are coming soon. Check the tickets page in late summer for the on-sale link.
• Arrive close to opening. In my experience, ten to eleven a.m. is the sweet spot. Vendors are fresh, samples are stocked, and the sun hasn't hit its afternoon peak on the tent tops. Later in the day, lines tend to lengthen and the most popular chocolate makers can run low.
• Bring water. Chocolate and coffee both dry you out, and you're walking outdoors in Hawaiʻi. A refillable bottle earns its keep.
• Cash and card both work. Most vendors take card, but a few of the smaller craft-fair booths tend to be cash-only.
• Book a rental car in advance. Kauaʻi's shoulder season isn't as quiet as it used to be, and last-minute pickups get expensive fast. Same rule as the tasting passport: early is cheap, day-of is not.
• Don't overplan the afternoon. The festival is more social than you think going in. You'll want to sit with something you liked, listen to the live music for a set, and let a conversation with a farmer run past its allotted five minutes. Leave the calendar open after four.