Tea Hawaii & Co founders, Eva Lee (left) and her husband, Chiu Leong (right), believe Hawaii’s growing tea industry is built on cooperation, collaboration, and community. Photo credit: Tea Hawaii & Co
For many visitors, the Hawaiian Islands are known for their warm sandy beaches, stunning green landscapes, fresh seafood, and salt-kissed breezes. Within the state’s agricultural hall of fame reside coffee, pineapple, sugarcane, and macadamia nuts, but hidden among its farming community is a small yet established collection of growers producing premium tea.
For the past twenty years, USDA, in cooperation with other organizations such as the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s (UHM) College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resilience (CTAHR), has been funding studies assessing the economic viability of Hawaii-grown tea as a specialty crop. To date, the majority of growers focus on premium loose-leaf tea, including white, pan-fired green, oolong, and black teas, as well as an experimental pivot into tea powders and matcha.
Moving into 2026, many Hawaii tea growers believe the industry is on the cusp of explosive growth, with many efforts being focused on collective processing, bringing in new farmers, and reducing the cost of agricultural inputs.
A Culture of Independence: A Future of Cooperation
Eva Lee, founder of Tea Hawaii & Co, along with husband Chiu Leong, has been a longtime advocate for and participant in Hawaii’s tea industry. Located in Volcano Village on Hawaii Island, Lee’s company not only produces shade-grown and forest-grown premium tea but also provides processing facilities and services for other local tea growers.
Many producers on the island focus on premium shade and forest-grown loose-leaf teas. Photo credit: Tea Hawaii & Co
Clients for Hawaii’s tea producers range from individual consumers to wholesale partners in countries as widespread as Canada, Germany, the UK, Denmark, and Taiwan. However, due to a reduction in public funding for tea research, as well as Hawaii’s lack of an established tea organization for information to pass through, Lee says production numbers are hard to pin down. “There are so many growers doing so many different types of teas and servicing different markets,” she notes.
While historically only a few local growers have been interested in cooperative integration, Lee continues to expand her processing facilities, keeping an eye on the future. Recently, she has added a ball mill for grinding tea into powder and a multi-hopper filter bag filler, and plans on purchasing a steamer for tencha, the precursor to matcha, and a new building to support tea processing. The goal: to provide a centralized facility for Hawaii Island’s growers to process their tea.
“There is a cultural challenge among tea growers,” says Lee, “in the state of Hawaii as well as in the Southeast US. They’re not necessarily interested in integrating with each other.” But Lee believes the industry is at a turning point. “This next generation doesn’t have that same attitude,” she says.
In other countries, tea-growing communities support one another and have done so for generations. Lee says that here in the West, tea growers lack that history of community support. The artistry of tea is a long-term skill passed down from generation to generation, so Lee believes in building others up and creating an environment where every tea grower can thrive and pass on their knowledge.
Chiu Leong processing freshly picked tea buds and leaves. Photo credit: Tea Hawaii & Co
“After all the years of research and collaboration with institutions as well as private consumers, it’s very clear to me that there is great potential to scale up to meet these demands,” adds Lee. The future resides in cooperation, collaboration, and community.
Matcha Madness Here and Abroad
As demand for matcha continues to dominate the tea industry, US domestic tea growers are looking to cash in. Lee has witnessed this firsthand with a surge in orders from new farms, primarily in Washington and Oregon, for propagated plant stock. She says their goal is to produce commercially viable matcha in as few as five years, so they are eschewing growing tea plants from seed, a much longer, more inconsistent method.
Lee jokes, “That’s why we call that the 20-year plan. Because they’re not true to seed, there’s a long period of time before there’s consistency.” Lee says that while plantations with commercial production are established enough to conduct long-term experiments on cultivar development, new growers wanting to enter commercial production as soon as possible must rely on propagated plant stock of known cultivars suited to their environments.
On Hawaii Island, Lee has witnessed the beginnings of several new tea growers. “These growers are really just getting started,” she says, explaining that some are just about to hit that 5-year mark where they’ll be able to begin commercial production.
Hawaii tea growers have also relied on propagated plant stock for their own operations. Past CTAHR studies have examined cultivars from Camellia sinensis var. assamica and var. sinensis to cultivars such as Bohea and Yabikata, assessing which varietals are best suited to the region and for production needs. A Hawaii-specific cultivar is, however, still on the horizon.
“Public institutions are transitioning focus due to lack of research funding,” Lee notes. With public funding for research on Hawaii-grown tea waning, any research on developing a local tea cultivar is only happening in the private sector.
Resiliency and Sustainability in Hawaii’s Agriculture
Hawaii, by nature of its remoteness and global popularity, walks a difficult line. Despite a 52-week growing season, the state imports 85% of its food. Consumer goods and agricultural inputs also follow this trend, lending to concerns about the state’s resiliency in the face of a changing climate and world. Resiliency and sustainability are at the heart of Hawaii’s agriculture, reflected in UHM’s College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, officially changing its name to the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resilience in 2024.
Amjad Ahmad, PhD, is an extension agent of sustainable and organic agriculture at UHM, whose work focuses on improving the sustainability and resilience of Hawaii’s agricultural industry, tea included. “Crop diversity and variety selection are big focuses here in Hawaii because of pest pressure,” says Ahmad. The goal is to reduce growers’ reliance on imported inputs, such as pesticides and fertilizers.
One of Mauna Kea Tea’s fields on the Big Island of Hawaii. Photo credit: Dorian Karahalios
One of Ahmad’s current research projects involves using a two-layer kiln to convert invasive plants into biochar without external energy input. He explains that while both the inner and outer layers are filled with biomass, the inner layer is sealed to create the ideal environment for biochar production, and the outer layer serves as the fuel for the process.
At recommended dosages, biochar can correct acidic soil, promote microbial activity, and improve moisture and nutrient retention, lasting up to 10 years before reapplication. “I tell people I think about it as a conditioner for the soil,” he says. Another of Ahmad’s studies found that the addition of biochar into the early stages of composting, just 5% by volume, could shorten the 3-5 month composting process by as much as 16 days.
Ahmad says that research into other locally sourced inputs is ongoing, ranging from using washed, dried, and powdered invasive seaweeds as soil amendments (within the same watershed to control their spread) to generating compost from food waste in Hawaii’s tourism industry. Local growers are also focusing on tissue culture to produce disease-free propagation in various crops.
Lee of Tea Hawaii & Co. also sees sourcing inputs locally as important to the future growth of Hawaii’s tea industry, noting that new growers are looking to alternative, more integrated methods from conventional input-based agriculture. “Young farmers these days understand the costs of conventional farming inputs,” she says. “They incorporate their own amendments that are integrated into their growing system.”
Lessons From the Matcha Motherland
In the fall of 2019, Lee visited a fourth-generation tea farm in Japan. There she found growers mechanically harvesting parts of the tea plant that might have ended up in her compost pile back home. This was an “aha” moment for Lee. “It was a huge pivot,” she exclaims. While autumn harvests are not considered ideal, Lee was amazed by the flavor of the matcha from a supposedly lesser-quality harvest.
In response to the world’s insatiable demand for matcha, Eva Lee now produces Hawaii-grown green tea powders using a ball mill grinder. Photo credit: Tea Hawaii & Co
“Winemakers have their various grades,” she says. “They know what is affordable for their production, and they also have their collector’s items, their reserve labels.” Lee saw this as an area Hawaii-grown teas could focus on, especially in creating entry-level teas for new consumers. “When I came home, the message to a lot of our fellow growers was to consider, if the numbers work out, not composting some of the material that would be considered just prunings or clippings.”
Currently, Tea Hawaii & Co. offers various tea powders utilizing this philosophy. With the future addition of a steaming machine, Lee’s facilities will also be able to support the production of matcha. Lee says that due to global demand for matcha, buyers for the steaming machines are facing wait times of 12-18 months. “We’re also looking into new projects, smaller types of steaming mechanisms that may be more conducive for Hawaii’s level of production, as well as seeing if we can get it manufactured in the US.”
What the Future Holds
The potential for Hawaii-grown teas is high, but Lee believes its growth, as well as that of US-grown tea in general, will primarily come from the supply side of the industry. Entry-level tea, what growers might consider second-grade, suitable for boxes of tea bags destined for grocery store shelves, will provide the gateway to grow the domestic audience and make tea culture more accessible to the consumer.
“If tea agriculture were scaled up more,” Lee says, “whether it be in Hawaii or throughout the US, cultural engagement would follow.” For Hawaii tea to meet its potential, Lee says growers need to help it land “somewhere between commodity and specialty so that it’s more accessible to the consumer and more commercially viable for the livelihood of the grower.”