Ka‘ū News Briefs, Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2022

MāmakiTea at Wood Valley Māmaki Farm, which sells most of its harvest to Shaka Tea. Photo by Julia Neal

 MAMAKI TEA FROM WOOD VALLEY MADE A BIG SPLASH in a Honolulu Civil Beat story on Sunday. Agricultural writer Thomas Heaton notes that, "māmaki is only grown in Hawai'i and was first used by early Polynesian settlers. Now you can find it in 7-Eleven, Costco and soon, Whole Foods." He writes, "Given the strong market for herbal teas, worth $401 million last year worldwide, māmaki provides farmers with a promising crop for a well-established market." Read the entire article about the soaring business of māmaki and learn about its connection to native Hawaiian culture 
at https://www.civilbeat.org/2022/02/this-ancient-hawaiian-plants-popularity-has-soared-not-everyone-is-
pleased/

Shaka tea got its start with māmaki from Wood Valley, its biggest supplier of the native leaf. Photo from Shaka Tea

    The Kaʻū part of the story involves the Wood Valley māmaki farm managed by Matt and Andy Drayer with its 8,000 māmaki trees on 25 acres. The Civil Beat story says it is "the largest mamaki farm in Hawai'i" and largest supplier to Shaka Tea in Hilo, which takes almost all of the Drayers' harvest to make its bottled mamaki drinks that are sold nationwide. Shaka Tea recently sold to King's Hawaiian on the mainland, reports Civil Beat.
    Heaton writes about the farm in Wood Valley, saying, "māmaki is naturally a companion plant, so grows well with others. Drayer’s māmaki is  interspersed with nitrogen-fixing plants such as perennial peanut, nasturtium, marigold and teosante, the forbearer of corn. More nitrogen collected from the atmosphere means healthier soil."
    Heaton writes, "Drayer, who hails from California and is also president of the Hawai'i Farmers Union United’s Kaʻū chapter, values the land and its integrity and wants his future children to have security and healthy food at their fingertips.
    "Over the course of his time working closely with māmaki, Drayer has also found other potential uses for the plant, including a sap-like residue that he thinks could be used like pectin or a thickening agent."        Drayer is quoted as saying, "The fact that māmaki is getting popular is great. But for someone like me, it’s important to keep it from going extinct.”
    The story also points to māmaki being a favorite food of the state insect, the increasingly rare Kamehameha butterfly. Heaton also writes about māmaki's role in Hawaiian culture.
    See the Civil Beat story at https://www.civilbeat.org/2022/02/this-ancient-hawaiian-plants-popularity-has-soared-not-everyone-is-pleased/
    See The Ka'u Calendar stories on Shaka Tea, with its start in Wood Valley at http://kaunewsbriefs.blogspot.com/search?q=Shaka+Tea and its mention in a Hawai'i governor's State of the State address at http://kaunewsbriefs.blogspot.com/2017_01_23_archive.html.

To read comments, add your own, and like this story, see www.facebook.com/kaucalendar/. See latest print edition at www.kaucalendar.com. See February events and Kaʻū Calendar newspaper sponsors at http://kaunewsbriefs.blogspot.com/2022/02/events-of-february-2022.html.

A TRUTH-IN-LABELING BILL FOR KA'U AND OTHER HAWAIIAN COFFEES is before the Hawai'i Legislature and Hawi'i Farmers Union United urges support.
    HB1517 would require coffee blend labels to disclose geographic and regional origins and percent by weight of the blended coffees. The measure would prohibit using geographic origins of coffee in labeling or advertising for roasted or instant coffee that contains less than a certain percentage of coffee by weight from that geographic origin. The regulation would be phased in to requires a minimum of 51 percent after July 1, 2024.