Coffee, Tea or... Honey? Experience Unique Local Flavors on New Big Island Farms Tour.
Visitors to Hawaii’s Big Island looking for an “off the beaten track” green travel experience might want to try a new three farm tour on the Hamakua Coast which visits three working farms with unique Hawaii products- honey, coffee and tea. It’s also a place where many visitors who once thought of Hawaii as a sun, sand and surf destination are now making time to experience the agricultural and culinary side of Paradise.
Hamakua Coast, HI, December 17, 2008 --(PR.com)-- Vanilla beans, cacao, gourmet tomatoes, herbs, mangos, macadamia nuts – name a product of the land and you’ll likely find it here.
“Here” is Hawaii’s Big Island, which because of its size – greater than the other Hawaiian Islands combined – and diversity of climates is Hawaii’s proverbial breadbasket, a place where almost anything can be and is grown.
It’s also a place where many visitors who once thought of Hawaii as a sun, sand and surf destination are now making time to experience the agricultural and culinary side of Paradise. And there’s plenty to discover: In the Island’s farmers markets, in stores and shops, on restaurant menus and at food festivals, Island “ag” products – with the blessing and support of the County of Hawaii and the State of Hawaii - are getting attention.
At the same time, visitors are going directly to the source, learning how products are grown and meeting the people growing them. One such place is Ahualoa, 40 miles north of Hilo on the Hamakua Coast, where a new tour takes guests to a coffee farm, tea garden and honey farm.
Ahualoa is on the northeast flank of now extinct Mauna Kea volcano. On a sunny day you’ll have a beautiful view out onto the vast Pacific - keep going and 2,500 miles away you will run directly into Los Angeles, though in this out-of-the-way uplands you feel about a million miles from LA or anywhere.
It’s worth coming to Ahualoa just to drive down the Hamakua Coast, among the most spectacular on any of the already spectacular Hawaiian Islands, a verdant, visual treat with dozens of rushing waterfalls, drop-dead ocean and mountain scenery, and small communities.
For many decades, the Hamakua Coast was mostly one big sugar plantation, thriving on the reliable rains and local workers. The rains are still here, but the sugar is 15 years gone to places where labor is much cheaper.
For the same reason sugar grew so well in this fertile soil, other crops do, too. Now, agriculture made up of small farmers and individual entrepreneurs has sprung up all along this coast. The three farms on the Ahualoa tour are typical of these new culinary innovators.
Take coffee. Usually associated with the Kona side of the Big Island, at one time coffee farms were also prominent here on the Hamakua Coast. That’s one of the first things visitors find out from Wendell and Netta Branco, owners of Long Ears Hawaiian Coffee farm, where the tour starts.
The Brancos have had this farm for years, using it mainly for breeding mules. But in 2000, as Wendell tells it, he decided to pick the beans from some of the wild coffee trees growing on the land. Soon he had 300 pounds of ripe, red coffee “cherry” beans – and a business was born.
Not having many coffee trees themselves, the Brancos found more wild trees growing on the Hamakua Coast, dug them up and planted 400 new trees on their acreage. They acquired the basic equipment for processing the beans and taught themselves how to do the pulping, drying, husking and roasting that are involved in creating “coffee.”
They also bought more coffee cherry from small farmers on the coast who still had producing trees on their property. Reciting an interesting history, Wendell explains that many of these farms once supplied beans to the half dozen or so mills processing coffee on the coast in the last century – mills which gradually phased out with the coming of sugar mono cropping.
The Brancos coffee estate is now the only one on the Hamakua Coast doing the entire coffee process, from picking through final roasted product, on site. Also, unlike other coffee companies, at the Long Ears farm the coffee is “aged” for three years after it dries, giving it its unique flavor. “It’s kind of like fine wine, cheese or women,” is how Wendell explains the aging. “After all, this is Hawaii, so we aren’t in any hurry here.”
This is important, says Wendell. To get a quality product, it’s all about taking time, doing this in a traditional, caring way. At their Long Ears farm stop, guests learn all this from Wendell, as friendly, colorful and memorable a character as you will meet anywhere.
Of course, guests also get to taste the several varieties of Long Ears Hawaiian Coffee – the name comes from the mules long ears – accompanied by slices of fresh baked banana bread and a slice of real local life here on the Hamakua Coast.
The next tour stop is just a half-mile up the road, the Mauna Kea Tea Garden. Tea seems to suggest a peaceful, Zen-like setting and that’s exactly what this is. Owners Takahiro and Kimberly Ino started this tea operation a few years back, growing a single estate green tea on a quarter acre, which is rapidly expanding.
Although tea, like coffee, was introduced to Hawaii in the 19th century, today the Ino’s farm is one of only a few in the Hawaiian Islands. The climate here at the 2,000-foot elevation is perfect for tea cultivation: acidic soil, adequate year ‘round rainfall, cool nights and a mix of sunshine and cloudy skies. The Inos use sustainable farming practices to help them produce the best quality product.
As guests learn from Takahiro, creating the perfect tea is a challenging combination of science and art. The right timing for picking the leaves is critical, for example, as is the processing that follows. All tea varieties come from the same plant; how the leaves are dried and processed determines whether they become green, oolong or black teas.
Tea is processed for about eight – 10 hours, explains Takahiro, and should be consumed, rather than stored, as soon as possible following processing for maximum flavor. Taste also depends on the intricacies of tea brewing – including water temperature, the material of pots and cups and timing – and Takahiro demonstrates this to fascinated guests.
For many, it’s likely the first time they have ever experienced “real” fresh-picked and fresh-brewed tea, imbibing some of the ambience and mystery of this ancient beverage. “It’s a peaceful drink,” says the low-key but often humorous Takahiro, a native of Japan. “We drink it together to make friends.”
A little further up the narrow winding road from the Mauna Kea Tea Company is the tour’s final stop, the Volcano Island Honey Company. Tucked in this backcountry corner of Hawaii, the Volcano Island Honey Company is home to what National Geographic Traveler has called “some of the best honey in the world.”
That honey is Rare Hawaiian Organic White Honey, with an opalescent color and creamy, rich, sensuous essence that floats off your tongue. One taste and almost everyone agrees it’s the best honey they have ever tasted.
It’s no accident this honey tastes so good. The Volcano Island Honey Company produces what it calls “inspired honey,” because it is a business with an uncommon philosophy, emphasizing perennial values and living in harmony with nature and people.
Company owner Richard Spiegel had exactly this in mind when he started Volcano Island Honey Company two decades ago. A former attorney in Washington, D.C., the industrious Spiegel came to the Big Island to see if he could marry beekeeping to a “small but quality” approach to the business.
Spiegel tells guests all this along with the fascinating story about the history, biology, and social-spiritual significance of bees in our society. Beekeeping, for example, was mankind’s first agricultural endeavor; one-third of all food crops are pollinated by bees; honey has great spiritual significance and so on. He also sounds a warning that bees are disappearing around the world, a symptom, he says of how we have dealt with agricultural and environment on the planet.
His company’s all–organic honeys come from 150 beehives located in a single grove of kiawe trees along the arid coast on the west side of the Big Island. These trees are nothing to look at, but – thanks to underground water - produce a prolific number of blossoms saturated with exquisite nectar.
It’s this nectar that the 50,000 or so highly intelligent and socially complex worker bees in each hive efficiently turn into the honey, which Spiegel refers to as “unique honey in a unique circumstance.”
The honey is transported to the Ahualoa site, where it is carefully taken out of the comb or hexagonal cells created by the bees. The honey is not heated and left completely raw, strained but not filtered, and allowed to naturally crystallize, giving it its smooth, white texture.
It’s these types of things – among others practiced by Spiegel – that make his an authentic food artisan operation, just like Long Ears Hawaiian Coffee and Mauna Kea Tea Company. All three have, in Spiegel’s words, “consciously stayed small,” valuing tradition, quality and authenticity above other considerations.
Yes, visitors will learn about, taste and bring home as gifts or souvenirs the products from all three farms on their tour. Perhaps more importantly, however, they are taking away something intangible: an appreciation of a history, a lifestyle, a philosophy that matters in a fast-paced modern age of chain restaurants, processed foods and corporate agriculture.
Ahualoa Farms Tour Details
Visit all three farms for $75, plus 4.167% tax. (To visit one farm only, call the farm directly). Children ages 5 and under are free, and ages 6- 18 half price. A credit card is required to hold the reservation and 48 hour advance notice is required for cancellation with full refund. Cancellations made after 48 hours from date of tour will be charged 50% of the total cost.
Reservations are required: www.volcanoislandhoney.com/farm-tours.htm or call (808) 775-1000.
###
“Here” is Hawaii’s Big Island, which because of its size – greater than the other Hawaiian Islands combined – and diversity of climates is Hawaii’s proverbial breadbasket, a place where almost anything can be and is grown.
It’s also a place where many visitors who once thought of Hawaii as a sun, sand and surf destination are now making time to experience the agricultural and culinary side of Paradise. And there’s plenty to discover: In the Island’s farmers markets, in stores and shops, on restaurant menus and at food festivals, Island “ag” products – with the blessing and support of the County of Hawaii and the State of Hawaii - are getting attention.
At the same time, visitors are going directly to the source, learning how products are grown and meeting the people growing them. One such place is Ahualoa, 40 miles north of Hilo on the Hamakua Coast, where a new tour takes guests to a coffee farm, tea garden and honey farm.
Ahualoa is on the northeast flank of now extinct Mauna Kea volcano. On a sunny day you’ll have a beautiful view out onto the vast Pacific - keep going and 2,500 miles away you will run directly into Los Angeles, though in this out-of-the-way uplands you feel about a million miles from LA or anywhere.
It’s worth coming to Ahualoa just to drive down the Hamakua Coast, among the most spectacular on any of the already spectacular Hawaiian Islands, a verdant, visual treat with dozens of rushing waterfalls, drop-dead ocean and mountain scenery, and small communities.
For many decades, the Hamakua Coast was mostly one big sugar plantation, thriving on the reliable rains and local workers. The rains are still here, but the sugar is 15 years gone to places where labor is much cheaper.
For the same reason sugar grew so well in this fertile soil, other crops do, too. Now, agriculture made up of small farmers and individual entrepreneurs has sprung up all along this coast. The three farms on the Ahualoa tour are typical of these new culinary innovators.
Take coffee. Usually associated with the Kona side of the Big Island, at one time coffee farms were also prominent here on the Hamakua Coast. That’s one of the first things visitors find out from Wendell and Netta Branco, owners of Long Ears Hawaiian Coffee farm, where the tour starts.
The Brancos have had this farm for years, using it mainly for breeding mules. But in 2000, as Wendell tells it, he decided to pick the beans from some of the wild coffee trees growing on the land. Soon he had 300 pounds of ripe, red coffee “cherry” beans – and a business was born.
Not having many coffee trees themselves, the Brancos found more wild trees growing on the Hamakua Coast, dug them up and planted 400 new trees on their acreage. They acquired the basic equipment for processing the beans and taught themselves how to do the pulping, drying, husking and roasting that are involved in creating “coffee.”
They also bought more coffee cherry from small farmers on the coast who still had producing trees on their property. Reciting an interesting history, Wendell explains that many of these farms once supplied beans to the half dozen or so mills processing coffee on the coast in the last century – mills which gradually phased out with the coming of sugar mono cropping.
The Brancos coffee estate is now the only one on the Hamakua Coast doing the entire coffee process, from picking through final roasted product, on site. Also, unlike other coffee companies, at the Long Ears farm the coffee is “aged” for three years after it dries, giving it its unique flavor. “It’s kind of like fine wine, cheese or women,” is how Wendell explains the aging. “After all, this is Hawaii, so we aren’t in any hurry here.”
This is important, says Wendell. To get a quality product, it’s all about taking time, doing this in a traditional, caring way. At their Long Ears farm stop, guests learn all this from Wendell, as friendly, colorful and memorable a character as you will meet anywhere.
Of course, guests also get to taste the several varieties of Long Ears Hawaiian Coffee – the name comes from the mules long ears – accompanied by slices of fresh baked banana bread and a slice of real local life here on the Hamakua Coast.
The next tour stop is just a half-mile up the road, the Mauna Kea Tea Garden. Tea seems to suggest a peaceful, Zen-like setting and that’s exactly what this is. Owners Takahiro and Kimberly Ino started this tea operation a few years back, growing a single estate green tea on a quarter acre, which is rapidly expanding.
Although tea, like coffee, was introduced to Hawaii in the 19th century, today the Ino’s farm is one of only a few in the Hawaiian Islands. The climate here at the 2,000-foot elevation is perfect for tea cultivation: acidic soil, adequate year ‘round rainfall, cool nights and a mix of sunshine and cloudy skies. The Inos use sustainable farming practices to help them produce the best quality product.
As guests learn from Takahiro, creating the perfect tea is a challenging combination of science and art. The right timing for picking the leaves is critical, for example, as is the processing that follows. All tea varieties come from the same plant; how the leaves are dried and processed determines whether they become green, oolong or black teas.
Tea is processed for about eight – 10 hours, explains Takahiro, and should be consumed, rather than stored, as soon as possible following processing for maximum flavor. Taste also depends on the intricacies of tea brewing – including water temperature, the material of pots and cups and timing – and Takahiro demonstrates this to fascinated guests.
For many, it’s likely the first time they have ever experienced “real” fresh-picked and fresh-brewed tea, imbibing some of the ambience and mystery of this ancient beverage. “It’s a peaceful drink,” says the low-key but often humorous Takahiro, a native of Japan. “We drink it together to make friends.”
A little further up the narrow winding road from the Mauna Kea Tea Company is the tour’s final stop, the Volcano Island Honey Company. Tucked in this backcountry corner of Hawaii, the Volcano Island Honey Company is home to what National Geographic Traveler has called “some of the best honey in the world.”
That honey is Rare Hawaiian Organic White Honey, with an opalescent color and creamy, rich, sensuous essence that floats off your tongue. One taste and almost everyone agrees it’s the best honey they have ever tasted.
It’s no accident this honey tastes so good. The Volcano Island Honey Company produces what it calls “inspired honey,” because it is a business with an uncommon philosophy, emphasizing perennial values and living in harmony with nature and people.
Company owner Richard Spiegel had exactly this in mind when he started Volcano Island Honey Company two decades ago. A former attorney in Washington, D.C., the industrious Spiegel came to the Big Island to see if he could marry beekeeping to a “small but quality” approach to the business.
Spiegel tells guests all this along with the fascinating story about the history, biology, and social-spiritual significance of bees in our society. Beekeeping, for example, was mankind’s first agricultural endeavor; one-third of all food crops are pollinated by bees; honey has great spiritual significance and so on. He also sounds a warning that bees are disappearing around the world, a symptom, he says of how we have dealt with agricultural and environment on the planet.
His company’s all–organic honeys come from 150 beehives located in a single grove of kiawe trees along the arid coast on the west side of the Big Island. These trees are nothing to look at, but – thanks to underground water - produce a prolific number of blossoms saturated with exquisite nectar.
It’s this nectar that the 50,000 or so highly intelligent and socially complex worker bees in each hive efficiently turn into the honey, which Spiegel refers to as “unique honey in a unique circumstance.”
The honey is transported to the Ahualoa site, where it is carefully taken out of the comb or hexagonal cells created by the bees. The honey is not heated and left completely raw, strained but not filtered, and allowed to naturally crystallize, giving it its smooth, white texture.
It’s these types of things – among others practiced by Spiegel – that make his an authentic food artisan operation, just like Long Ears Hawaiian Coffee and Mauna Kea Tea Company. All three have, in Spiegel’s words, “consciously stayed small,” valuing tradition, quality and authenticity above other considerations.
Yes, visitors will learn about, taste and bring home as gifts or souvenirs the products from all three farms on their tour. Perhaps more importantly, however, they are taking away something intangible: an appreciation of a history, a lifestyle, a philosophy that matters in a fast-paced modern age of chain restaurants, processed foods and corporate agriculture.
Ahualoa Farms Tour Details
Visit all three farms for $75, plus 4.167% tax. (To visit one farm only, call the farm directly). Children ages 5 and under are free, and ages 6- 18 half price. A credit card is required to hold the reservation and 48 hour advance notice is required for cancellation with full refund. Cancellations made after 48 hours from date of tour will be charged 50% of the total cost.
Reservations are required: www.volcanoislandhoney.com/farm-tours.htm or call (808) 775-1000.
###
Contact
Volcano Island Honey Company
Andrea Dean
808-775-1000
www.volcanoislandhoney.com
From Dec 19- Jan 5th: (808) 889-5806 / andrea@andreadean.com
Andrea Dean
808-775-1000
www.volcanoislandhoney.com
From Dec 19- Jan 5th: (808) 889-5806 / andrea@andreadean.com
Contact
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