Old Hawaii Tea 

I received a phone call a few months ago from someone named Fred that had heard about Tealet and our effort to tell the story of the origin of tea. Fred then went on to explain to me that he had recently come to the realization that some very large trees in his family's land on the Big Island of Hawaii are Camellia sinensis. The tallest of the trees is 40 feet tall. When the family first discovered the trees eleven years ago no one knew that the trees had value.

In 2011 Hawaii Grown Tea hit the mainstream as news spread fast that a tea farm was selling their entire crop of tea to Harrods in UK and it was retailing for $4,800 a pound. After hearing this news Fred took a good look at those trees and started to research what they were and where they could have come from. After visiting the University of Hawaii agriculture research center for a tea growing workshop Fred could safely say that these trees are tea trees. As far as origin the only conclusion that the family can come to now is that the trees must have been planted by Chinese farm laborers. Fred started to read everything he could about tea and its production. After he had a solid level of confidence he started to harvest leaves from his very tall trees and process his own white tea.

Fred has decided to call his tea "Old Hawaii Tea Company" and is ready to start sharing samples for review. We are happy that he has decided to work with Tealet and will be sharing his next batches for review by our tasters. We plan to travel to Fred's tea trees to document the story and let you know more about these historic tea trees in Hawaii. Tea trees that are 40 feet tall should be many years old. The first documented Chinese agriculture workers came to Hawaii by 1800, so it is possible that these trees could be over 100 years old. This is not Fred's first time to work with plants so he has been taking cuttings and is developing a tissue culture program for these trees.

These trees open a new chapter for Hawaii Grown Tea.