Mauna Kea Tea's 2015 Green Tea

Last week I received a half ounce of fresh green tea from Mauna Kea Tea Company on the big island of Hawaii! Since my first post about this wonderful family farm five years ago, I've only tasted their teas a couple times, but I often think about them and enjoy following them on facebook and reading about Hawaiian tea production on their blog. Today I will share my review of their new 2015 Premium First Flush Green Tea.

The dry leaf of this green tea is really beautiful. It is made up entirely of long, twisted, leaf-and-bud sets with flecks of jade green, forest green, and silver. It smells fresh and sweet. A nice toasty aroma remains from the pan firing. 

For this cupping I used a large pinch of dry leaf, 165º F spring water, and a 1 minute steep in my glass gaiwan (steep time increased slightly with later infusions). The tea liquor is pineapple-yellow with a thick body and grassy fragrance.

I poured eight awesome infusions of this green tea. My notes bounced all around including herbaceous, floral, buttery and vegetal notes. This is my kind of green tea, it's complex and refreshing with a smooth and substantial mouth-feel. If you've never tasted Hawaiian grown tea I can think of no better place to start than this green from Mauna Kea Tea company.   

Māmaki

Māmaki is a small tree in the nettle family endemic to Hawaii. Native Hawaiians have used the plant's leaves and fruits as food and medicine for hundreds of years. The bark is also used to make cloth and rope.

For Christmas, my mother-in-law gave me a 0.55 ounce bag of dried māmaki leaves for use as a tisane. The recommended parameters printed on the package are: "Steep 1 teaspoon (1 - 2 leaves) in a cup of boiled water for 5 minutes, strain and resteep up to 3 times." I selected two large leaves and did just that.

The Packaging

The Product

The Liquor

This herb has a unique flavor. It is earthy, citrusy and grassy. I pick up notes of dandelions, rich black soil, bancha green tea, and metallic canned green beans. The aftertaste is where most of the citrus flavors linger. It almost reminded me of a somewhat earthy and musty Alishan high mountain oolong. Not bad.

Kama'aina Green and Oolong Teas

I was eating my lunch at Teacup last week when I got an unexpected phone call from the Mauna Kea Tea Company on the big island of Hawaii. The proprietress, Kimberly, and I had a nice discussion about her and her partner Takahiro's tea farm. I could tell that they had truly found their calling producing organic tea in Hawaii, so after our conversation, I went right to their website and ordered one 25-gram bag of both Kama'aina Oolong Tea and Kama'aina Green Tea.

A week later the teas arrived, and I am excited to now share my opinion of them in the following two reviews. Keep in mind that I had no idea what these teas would be like before I first opened the bags and inspected them. Only at that point was I able to attempt an educated guess on how best to brew them for my first time.

I started with the green tea on September 1, 2010. According to Kimberly this tea is "a mix of varieties picked on June 30th, July 5th, and July 6th." The dry leaf was quite lovely and had a pleasing toasty aroma. Because it kind of looked and smelled to me closer to a Chinese style green tea, I decided to use one teaspoon of dry leaf in a 5 ounce gaiwan, 170° spring water and a two minute steep.

Kama'aina Green

The resulting tea soup was a striking fluorescent yellow color. It smelled sweet and nutty and I was in love from my first sip. To me this green tea is very complex and satisfying. It was unique and familiar at the same time. It had moments that reminded me of my beloved Yang Xian Mao Feng (陽羡毛峰) green tea, but it also hinted at gyokuro in the aftertaste. My tasting notes were all over the place and included: buttery, macadamia nut, black peppercorn, sauteed Swiss chard, and raw summer snap peas. I would reorder this tea in a heartbeat.

Green's Tea Soup


Green's Leaves

I drank the Kama'aina oolong throughout the day on September 2, 2010. Its dry leaves looked similar to the green, but it also had flecks of yellow, gold and brown. This tea was harvested on May 20th and May 21st.

At first I decided to brew it like I normally would a hearty Chinese oolong. I used two teaspoons in a 5 ounce gaiwan and boiling water. I gave the leaves a five second rinse and proceeded to smell them. Unexpectedly, they had a grassy, earthy aroma that reminded me somewhat of Japanese bancha green tea.

Kama'aina Oolong

My first infusion was about 60 seconds with boiling water. It presented an amber-yellow color with a heady grass and wildflower aroma. My first exploratory sip yielded a harsh and disappointing liquor. I had clearly over-steeped it so I backed off quite a bit on the steeping time, but the obvious potential in these beautiful Polynesian leaves was proving highly elusive.

Oolong's Tea Soup

The mouth-feel was bold and thick but the taste was "blah." The aroma on the underside of the gaiwan lid, on the other hand, was intoxicating. It was so fruity and delicious. My wife was reminded of candied pineapples and I of passionfruit. The question became... "How do I get this aroma into the cup?"

So after 3 infusions I removed half of the leaves from the gaiwan and cooled my water down to about 180°. This method became my saving grace and the softer, sweeter soup that it now poured was milky, floral and smooth. I do like this tea but I think I need to brew it like the green tea.

Oolong's Leaves

Big Island Green Tea

I came across the Big Island Tea Company last December while searching the internet for more information about genuine Hawaiian tea. When I spoke with the owner Eliah via email, I could tell she was passionate about growing and making delicious, healthy organic tea. Then she told me the wholesale price... $1 per gram. At first I thought it may have been a typo. $1 per gram is about $453 per pound, and that is much more than I've ever paid for a tea before. The more I thought about it, the more intrigued I became. I know art is subjective and one man's $10,000 painting could be another man's $1 piece of junk. Hawaiian tea certainly has novelty going for it... but that alone is not enough... Eliah's tea must be a work of art... and I owe it to myself to try it! I agreed to buy 50 grams of new spring tea when it was completed.

Last week, she let me know the tea was ready, and several days later I received two 25 gram bags of fresh Hawaiian green tea!

The bag:

The packaging impressed me because it was heat sealed and it had a batch date on it. These are two special touches that I would certainly expect from a $453/lb tea. Also, the the logo was both beautifully endearing and very D.I.Y.

So with great anticipation I opened one bag. The smell that greeted me was a pure tropical mountain smell. My wife took a big whiff and sighed. "It smells like Hawaii!" she exclaimed with a smile. Several times throughout the evening I caught her sneaking more smells. The dry leaves looked great too. They were long, twisted, and completely intact.

The dry leaves:

This morning I had my first pot but it was very hard to decide how to brew it. I decided on a small teapot named Vortex (425 ml) and 8 grams of tea. I used water at 170 degrees and steeped the tea 2 minutes. The liquor was light and smelled very nice, but it was a little too light, so I steeped it 30 more seconds. I used the same temperature of water for 5 excellent infusions but the steep for #2 and #3 was three minutes. Steeps #4 and #5 were 5 minutes.

The liquor:

The flavor of this green tea is remarkably Hawaiian. Power of suggestion is very real but I don't think this is just in my head. I drink a lot of Chinese tea and I trust my palate. This tea presented me with flavors I've never experienced and a few familiar ones too. All of the infusions were very clean, delicate and nuanced, but infusion #1 started with a sulfur and mineral note that had fruity peaks on the middle of my tongue. Infusion #2 had the creamiest body, with a green banana note that worked its way up into my nose. Infusion #3 was pure Hawaii with earthy minerals and sand with a breezy flowery smell. Infusion #4 took a radical turn, this cup had a hint of sweet smoke and peppery soil. It reminded me of a lovely Yunnan green that I used to buy from Tribute Teas over five years ago. Infusion #5 was similar to #4 but it had a little watery taste indicating that it was done. Next time I'll try a gaiwan packed with leaf and go for a totally different experience.

The beautiful spent leaves:

In the end, I was satisfied by this delicious, rare, and truly Hawaiian tea. Aloha.

My First Tasting of Real Hawaiian Tea

Last November after an excellent family vacation to Maui I posted about genuine Hawaiian-grown tea. The only problem was... I had never actually tasted Hawaiian tea. Until now.

A friend (and former coworker) named Jessica brought a little can of Hawaiian oolong into Teacup (my work) to share with us. She said a friend of hers had bought it on a recent trip to the Big Island.

The can:

I do not know too much about this particular product; in fact, I could not find it on the Hilo Coffee Mill website. I'm betting this is due to very limited supply and that the tea is currently only available for sale on the Big Island.

While researching my original Hawaiian tea post I emailed several farmers who seemed extremely passionate and knowledgeable about their teas. They mainly seem focused on producing small quantities of superb tea for connoisseur buyers. In fact, one farmer claimed that her best tea fetches $1 per gram ($453 per pound). I'm hoping to try her tea next spring when she has fresh tea ready.

The dry leaves of the Hilo Coffee Mill tea (currently the only Hawaiian tea I have ever tasted) are twisted and voluminous. Their colors range from black to orange to forest green. They have a sweet, earthy smell that is reminiscent of fallen Autumn leaves.

The dry leaf:

I'd say this tea was a great introduction to Hawaiian tea. It had a wonderful and complex flavor.
The first flavor most people picked up was intense rich, raw, fresh honey. Beyond that, delicate notes of volcanic minerals, raisins, and tropical flowers could be detected.

The tea soup:


In other news, Seattle is still buried in snow!
Check out what Alanna and I made today:

Hawaiian Tea - 夏威夷的茶

Me and my girls (Alanna and baby Cora) just returned from a short but wonderful vacation to Maui, Hawaii. We rented a little condo in Honokowai (just north of Lahaina). The condo was across the street from Honokowai beach park and practically next door to a groovy little health food store and a farmers market! Needless to say we were in heaven! The condo was well stocked with all the basic things we needed to cook our meals and it even had some beach stuff and a cooler we could use. The only thing it lacked was a teapot. As you may already know "coffee is king" in the Hawaiian islands. International love for Hawaiian coffee has been increasing ever since the 1800's when they first started growing it. I didn't mind the lack of a teapot too much. I had brought along a good infuser and some very nice teas. We had: Kama Assam from India's Satrupa garden, Spring 2008 Lishan High Mountain oolong that I had brought home from my May 2008 trip to Taiwan, and some very tasty Sencha green tea that a friend had brought me after she spent a few weeks in Japan. Alanna and I would start each day with a nice mug (or two) of hot tea, (the mugs at the condo, appropriately, had palm trees and pineapples on them), then we would make an infusion to pour over ice after we returned from our daily adventuring.

On the flight to Maui I was very excited to read an article in Hana Hou magazine called: The Archipelago of Tea. It was about real Hawaiian tea being produced on the Big Island! The production of which is still very small, but the tea farmers and other people involved seem to be truly passionate about making great teas. The article made it clear that Hawaiian tea is crafted with tea connoisseurs in mind and that the farmers view their own tea production as an artistic outlet. It sounds like my next trip to Hawaii will have to include tea on the Big Island!

I have tasted real teas from all over the world including: India, China, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Kenya, Malawi, Indonesia, Malaysia, Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, Georgia, Nepal, Japan, South Carolina, and Washington State, but I've yet to have any genuine Hawaiian tea. Alanna and I searched for it while on Maui, but we were unable to find any. Thanks to a great post by Another Tea Blog I have a few leads and links to share. Onomea, Tea Hawaii, Big Island Tea, and Mauna Kea Tea. I plan to order some samples soon and I'll let you know what I think in the future.

Kapalua Bay:

Iao Needle:

Baldwin Beach: