Brief, illustrated history of the pineapple industry on Maui—a condensed version of Pineapple Century by Jan TenBruggencate.

Pineapple’s succulent combination of sweet, tart and fragrant has entranced folks for decades. For more than a century, Maui was the heart of the Hawaiian pineapple industry. The crowned fruit graced thousands of acres on the slopes of Haleakalā, west and central Moloka‘i and gentle hills of Lāna‘i, the Pineapple Isle.

Maui Pineapple: Golden Legacy of the Crowned Fruit reviews the storied history of pineapple on Maui, from its beginnings in the 1840s, when thousands of fresh fruit went by clipper ship to California, to Hawaiian pineapple’s glory days of the early 1900s, and finally through the industryʻs contraction due to international competition. Today, fresh Maui pineapple is still available, and as lip-smacking tasty as ever.

Jan TenBruggencate is a prize-winning writer and author of more than a dozen books set in Hawai‘i. He was raised in a pineapple plantation town on Molokai, the son of a pineapple researcher.