Award-winning Ka‘u coffee has just made a huge stride onto the international market: It is being served at 192 select Starbucks coffeehouses in the United States, Canada and Japan. (Unfortunately, none are in Hawaii.)

Through mid-November, the regional coffee will be featured under the Starbucks Reserve program in which premium coffees are brewed by the cup.

"We expect to have an ongoing relationship (with Starbucks)," says Chris Manfredi, president of Ka‘u Local Products, who saw the Ka‘u coffee on the menu board in two New York Starbucks.

Signs there describe the coffee as having a "fresh coconut flavor with sweet caramelly notes and hints of citrus and nut."

Manfredi says Ka‘u coffee comes from 40 small family farms working a combined 280 acres on the southeast flank of Mauna Loa. The coffee is handpicked, processed in small batches and sun dried.

This year and in 2010, coffee from Ka‘u took "Coffee of the Year" honors at the Specialty Coffee Association of America competition.

Ka‘u coffee made waves when it was introduced in 2007 in international competitions and has ranked at the top of the SCAA charts ever since.