A basket of tea leaves represents a healthy harvest in Waimea.
What’s brewin’?
Tea plants thrive on
the Big Island's foggy slopes,
offering hope for new industry
The fog rises like steam from a tea kettle, fortuitous imagery for a tea plantation.
At two locations on the Big Island, federal and state researchers have planted experimental plots of tea. Their aim is to foster an industry for small farms -- grown-in-Hawaii, processed-in-Hawaii tea.
"It would be a niche market with its own signature," says Francis Zee, research leader and horticulturist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center.
Zee expects to have processed tea ready for sampling within a year; commercial production perhaps in three years.
Four years ago, the USDA and the University of Hawaii's College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources began planting eight varieties of tea at plots in Volcano and Waimea. At elevations of 4,000 and 2,800 feet, respectively, the experimental farms are "situated in fog country," says Dwight Sato, an extension agent in Hilo working on the project. Another site at Waiakea -- 600 feet in elevation -- didn't do as well.
"The high elevation, the fog and the weather are really conducive to growing tea," Sato says.
Workers harvest tea at an experimental plot on the Big Island near Waimea. Foggy conditions at the high elevation have proven good for the tea plants.
A particular variety of Chinese tea has been identified as vigorous, disease-resistant and unique in taste, Zee says. He's been working with small batches, using a wok, a microwave, dehydrator and toaster oven to roast and dry the leaves.It's a process that takes all night, turning 5 pounds of fresh leaves into 1 pound of dry. "It's good for home consumption," Zee says. "You can brag about it. It's nice." But on a commercial basis, "it's kind of ridiculous."
Commercial-scale processing equipment is on its way to the research facilities, though, which should move things along.
Sato says the goal is to create a model farm at Waimea where farmers can obtain cuttings and learn to nurture the plants. "The idea is the farmer would go vertical," he says, perhaps working in co-ops to grow, process and sell their tea.
It will likely be a business for back-yard farms, small-scale growers, focused on boutique-quality tea -- not mass-production.
"No matter what we grow in Hawaii, we can do it as good as anywhere else," Zee says. "The problem is, somebody else is going to do it cheaper. The thing is to do something no one can steal away."
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