It was my mother who recently educated me (in an “oh, by the way, just FYI, not because Mother’s Day is coming up or anything” tone of voice) about the difference between “Kona coffee” and “Kona blend coffee.” According to Swistle’s Mother, Kona coffee is rare and wonderful and expensive; Kona blend is mostly cheap coffee, with a little Kona thrown in for those of us who remember that Kona = good, without remembering that our mothers told us blend = bad.

Amazon.com has a few choices eligible for free shipping. Coffee Masters whole-bean Hawaiian Kona is four 12-ounce bags for $111.31 (down from $180.87); that’s about $28 per 12-ounce bag, in case you have four mothers or one really lucky one.

The Coffee Masters ground Hawaiian Kona is unfortunately unavailable as of posting, but may be in stock soon. Or you know what would be a nice gift? A bag of the whole-bean coffee, plus a coffee grinder. The white version is $24.99 and the black version is down to $18.97, and at least the white one but possibly both of them qualify for the “4-for-3″ promotion (buy four qualifying items and the cheapest one is free). Not that you’d need four coffee grinders, but there are a lot of books and kitchen items and so on that qualify for it, and you can mix and match to heart’s content.

If you don’t want quite so MUCH Kona coffee, there’s the Maui Coffee Company 100% Kona in whole bean or in ground. That’s two 8-ounce bags for $23.83 (down from $33.36), which is about $12 per bag. One for mother, one for mother-in-law, brush hands off briskly and you’re done.

If the mom you’re shopping for has one of those machines that uses pods, there’s these Timothy’s World Kona pods, two 25-count boxes for $16.86 (down from $24.98), and you can use coupon code “PODPOD4O” to get another 25% off.

If you check local stores, remember what Swistle’s Mother said: NO BLENDS. —Swistle