Ka`u News Briefs, Wednesday, Aug. 21. 2013

KA`U HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS VOLLEYBALL is getting a lot of attention from area news media this morning. Both West Hawai`i Today and Hawai`i Tribune Herald describe the Trojans as a team to watch during the upcoming Big Island Interscholastic Federation season. One headline declares "For once, Ka`u is the hunted." Reporter Matt Gerhart points out that the team's attitude is that ''life after Marley is going to be just fine." The story refers to Marley Strand-Nicolaisen, last year's star of the girls Trojan volleyball team. After graduating, she has moved on with a full scholarship to University of Hawai`i-Hilo for her freshman year, along with a smaller scholarship from Ka`u Chamber of Commerce. Another star, lost to graduation, is Kaila Olson.

     The story points to rising stars on the 2013 Ka`u team, including 6-foot tall Toni Beck, who is moving into Strand-Nicolaisen's middle blocker position. She played for the Trojans last year when it won its first BIIF championship in Ka`u High's history. The story by Gerhart quotes a number of the Ka`u girls volleyball players. It reports junior setter Kerrilynn Domondon saying, "We're going to show everybody. Some people think Marley did everything. We're going to show this year that we can win." The West Hawai`i Today story quotes Beck saying, "I think there's a lot of pressure because we won last year that we have to do it again. But I guess that pressure is motivation. I just need to get it done." Other team members include Kamalani Fujikawa, Sky Kanakaole-Eperson and Jernest Breithaupt-Louis.

     According to the story, coach Joshua Ortega says that the team could be even better defensively this year, and points to the skills of Breithaupt-Louis and Beck, Beck is moving from offense to defense. In July, she traveled to Ft. Lauderdale, FL to play in a USA Volleyball High Performance tournament with the team called Moku O Keawe. Last year, she traveled with the same team to Des Moines, Iowa. Among their mentors is the U.H.-Hilo volleyball coach.

     The first game of the season for Ka`u Girls Volleyball is Tuesday, Aug. 27 at Lapahoehoe High. The Trojans play at Hawai`i Preparatory Academy on Friday, Aug. 30, at Pahoa on Wednesday, Sept. 4, at home against Parker School on Saturday, Sept. 7, at home against East Pac on Wednesday, Sept. 11, at home against Konawa`na on Saturday, Sept. 14, at Hilo High on Tuesday, Sept. 17, at Kealakehe on Saturday, Sept. 21, at home against Kamehameha on Wednesday, Sept. 25, at home against Kohala on Saturday, Sept. 28, at home against Waiakea on Wednesday, Oct. 2, at Honoka`a on Saturday, Oct. 5, at home against Kea`au, Wednesday, Oct. 9, at home against Makua Lani on Saturday, Oct. 12, followed by BIIF championship play and the state tournament.

WHO OWNS THE NAME KA`U COFFEE? Ka`u Coffee Growers Cooperative members recently voted to defer ownership of the name Ka`u Coffee to the state Department of Agriculture. Like Kona, the name would be held by the state and no one entity would be allowed to use the name Ka`u Coffee to sell coffee other than coffee actually grown in Ka`u. Ka`u Farm Bureau President Chris Manfredi who has been an owners' manager for most of the cooperative member's coffee lands for years, said he registered Kona Coffee under his own name last October, in order  to protect it for the farmers. He offered to turn the name Ka`u Coffee over to the cooperative during the meeting. However, Ka`u Coffee Growers Cooperative members said they are not the only coffee growers in Ka`u and not the first. There are Ka`u Coffee growers who are members of at least one other cooperative and Ka`u Coffee  growers unaligned with any coffee cooperative.

GROWING TEA IN KA`U incubator locations are being sought through a U.S. Department of Agriculture and Kohala Center program. Program leader Eva Lee, of Tea Hawai`i & Co., gave a workshop last weekend at Pahala Plantation Managers House, drawing some 40 people interested and backyard and commercial tea production. She said that she is open to helping start incubator tea nurseries where area residents could volunteer  to care for the keiki and obtain young tea plants for their own production. Locations have already been suggested in Wood Valley above Pahala, and in Wai`ohinu and Ocean View. The kind of tea being promoted for production in Ka`u is not the ti plant used in Hawaiian ceremony, dance and imu. It is the drinking tea plant, Cameellia sinensis, which produces white, green oolong and black tea. Lee said it can grow in a wide range of altitudes, soil conditions and rainfall. It needs water, but can grow in shade or sun. All of the elements bring variety of taste to the tea, even from one crop to the next. She said that when volcanic ash blows onto her own Volcano tea farm, a tea that tastes rich in minerals emerges.

      Mature tea plants take years to become productive and Lee said she will help prospective farmers budget for the cost of preparing land, supporting the tea plants with nutrients, the cost of water and marketing.

Diana Aki performs tonight in Volcano. Photo by Jay Robinson/NPS

     When asked whether tea could be interspersed with coffee, she said that she would recommend it only if the coffee is grown organically. She said it is not a matter of whether you support organic farming or farming.  Buyers want tea produced without chemicals, she said, and chemicals applied to coffee could blow onto the tea plants.

     Whether growers sell tea to a big marketer or create their own brands is up to the farmers, their skills and interests, Lee said. For more, see www.teahawaii.com.