Try a Rare Tea Grown on the Slopes of Haleakala on Maui
Honolulu-based Tea Chest Hawaiʻi debuts one of the rarest teas on the market, crafted by Maui Tea Farm.
Most people know about Hawaiʻi-grown coffee. We’re one of only two U.S. states that’s able to grow coffee plants commercially. (The other is California.)
But there’s another crop that we turn to for caffeine grown here: tea.
While the bulk of the world’s tea is grown in Asia, Hawaiʻi’s boutique tea industry is growing, thanks to committed farmers in areas with ideal conditions—acidic soil, higher elevation, ample sunlight, light rainfall—suitable for these plants. (Hawaiʻi also has volcanic soil, which, apparently, is perfect for growing tea. Who knew!)
Most of Hawaiʻi’s tea grows on Hawaiʻi Island, but there are now tea farms on Kauaʻi, Oʻahu and Maui.
Maui Tea Farm, a fairly young farm on the slopes of Haleakalā, has spent five years “brewing” a special tea that’s only now available and in very limited quantities. In fact, this tea—called Haleakalā Tea, with notes of dried bananas and honey—is only available at the Halekūlani in Waikīkī.
The farm, run by Andrea and Alex de Roode, sits at 4,000 feet elevation in Upcountry Maui, where the air is cooler and conditions are ideal. Maui Tea Farm one of the only growers and producers of camelllia sinensis, the specific species of tea plant that’s used to make most traditional caffeinated teas, on the island.
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This particular tea is the first tea to come out of a USDA grant to propagate tea around the state that Honolulu-based Tea Chest Hawaiʻi, an award-winning gourmet tea company, received five years ago. Maui Tea Farm only produces a few pounds of this black tea—processed entirely by hand—at a time, which makes it one of the rarest teas on the market today.
“Tea celebrates and compliments the cuisine of a region,” says Byron Goo, co-owner of Tea Chest Hawaiʻi. “We think about what goes into our teas from start to finish and view it as an opportunity to highlight Hawaiʻi’s distinct sense of place.”
Try this rare tea at Halekūlani’s afternoon tea service.
2199 Kālia Road, Waikīkī, Oʻahu, (808) 923-2311, halekulani.com. For more information about Maui Tea Farm, visit here.
