There is a moment that happens to almost every visitor on the Big Island. You sit down at a restaurant, pick up the menu, and notice that the chef has listed the farm by name next to the dish. The beef comes from Parker Ranch in Waimea. The greens were harvested this morning from a hillside garden in Kamuela. The coffee in your cup was picked, processed, and roasted on the same volcanic slope where the farm has operated for decades. That moment is not a marketing gimmick. It is the natural result of an island that takes its relationship with the land seriously.
Hawaii's Big Island is the premier farm to table destination in the United States, and probably one of the most compelling in the world. The reason comes down to geography and culture working together. One island holds eleven of the thirteen recognized climate zones on Earth. That means the rancher, the coffee farmer, the tropical fruit grower, and the fisherman are all neighbors. Supply chains that span thousands of miles on the mainland collapse here to a matter of hours or even minutes. Ingredients arrive at the kitchen in a state of freshness that simply cannot be replicated elsewhere.
At Buddha's Cup, we sit in the middle of this story. Our farm is in Holualoa, a small village perched on the slopes of the Kona coffee belt at around 1,400 feet above sea level. We grow, hand-pick, process, and roast our own Kona coffee on the farm. We also grow mamaki, an endemic Hawaiian plant that we dry into loose leaf tea. We bake rum cakes in our farmhouse kitchen using our own coffee and locally sourced Hawaiian rum. When you visit us or order from us, you are participating in the same farm to table philosophy that drives the best restaurants on this island.
This guide will walk you through everything you need to know to eat, drink, and experience the Big Island's farm to table culture in 2026. We will cover the philosophy behind the movement, the regions where it thrives, the restaurants worth your time, the role of Kona coffee as a culinary ingredient, and the native Hawaiian botanicals that are finding their way onto the most thoughtful menus and tea menus on the island. We will also show you how a farm visit connects the entire experience in a way that no restaurant meal alone can fully deliver. If you want to understand where your food comes from and why that matters, you have come to the right island. You can read more about how Hawaii farm to table coffee fits into this broader culinary tradition before we dive deeper into the guide.
What Makes Hawaii Farm to Table Different From the Mainland
The phrase "farm to table" has been used so widely on the mainland that it has lost some of its meaning. Restaurants attach it to menus where the nearest farm is two states away. It has become a marketing category more than a practice. On the Big Island of Hawaii, the phrase carries a different weight entirely, and understanding why will change how you experience every meal you eat here.
The 'Āina Philosophy and Why It Matters at the Table
The Hawaiian word 'āina is often translated as "land," but that translation leaves out the most important part. 'Āina comes from the root word 'ai, which means "to eat" or "to be nourished." The land is not simply a physical resource in the Native Hawaiian worldview. It is the source of nourishment, the foundation of identity, and a relationship that carries reciprocal obligation. You take care of the land, and the land takes care of you. This is not a metaphor. It is a framework for every decision made in relation to the natural world, including what gets grown, how it gets grown, and how it reaches the table.
When Hawaiian chefs talk about sourcing locally, they are often drawing on this deeper cultural inheritance, even when they do not say so explicitly. The choice to list a farm's name on a menu is an act of acknowledgment. It says: this ingredient has a home, a history, and a relationship with the people who grew it. That is a fundamentally different starting point from the mainland version of farm to table, which tends to be driven primarily by freshness, sustainability marketing, or consumer preference for transparency. In Hawaii, local sourcing is also an expression of cultural continuity. As Merriman's Hawaii has described it, the connection between chef and farmer here is not a trend but a responsibility rooted in how Native Hawaiians have understood their relationship with the land for generations.
This shows up at the table in tangible ways. Chefs prioritize ingredients that reflect the specific ahupua'a, or land division, where their restaurant operates. They build relationships with individual farmers rather than purchasing through anonymous distributors. They change menus based on what is actually available rather than forcing a fixed menu year-round. The result is food that tastes not just fresh but specific. You can often taste the place in the food itself, the mineral quality of volcanic soil in a root vegetable, the brightness of fruit that ripened in equatorial sun rather than a shipping container. According to Hawaii Guide, this connection to place is what most distinguishes the Hawaiian farm to table experience from similar movements elsewhere.
Hawaii Regional Cuisine and the Chefs Who Started the Movement
The formal story of Big Island farm to table begins in 1991, when twelve of Hawaii's most influential chefs gathered and founded Hawaii Regional Cuisine. Peter Merriman, who would go on to open Merriman's Waimea, was among them. The founding chefs made a collective commitment to source at least ninety percent of their ingredients from local Hawaiian farms, ranches, and fisheries. They formalized relationships with individual growers. They agreed to put farmers' names on menus. They created a culinary identity for Hawaii that was distinct from the continental American food culture that had dominated fine dining in the islands for decades.
What made this movement powerful was that it was not inventing something new. It was recognizing and elevating something that Hawaiian families, local cooks, and small farmers had been doing for generations. The 'āina philosophy was already embedded in how people grew and shared food across the islands. What Hawaii Regional Cuisine did was give this practice visibility and economic support within the fine dining world. Suddenly, being a local farmer supplying a respected restaurant carried prestige as well as income. The movement created positive feedback between the culinary scene and the agricultural community that continues to this day.
The multicultural flavor heritage of Hawaii also plays a defining role. Native Hawaiian, Japanese, Filipino, Korean, Portuguese, and Chinese culinary traditions have been layering and blending in these islands for more than a century. Hawaii Regional Cuisine embraced this complexity rather than trying to resolve it into a single unified style. The result is a food culture that is genuinely pluralistic. A farm to table meal on the Big Island might draw on Japanese fermentation techniques, Native Hawaiian preparation methods, Portuguese bread traditions, and contemporary Pacific Rim influences all in a single tasting menu. As Wanderlustyle notes, this multicultural layering is one of the things that makes dining on the Big Island feel unlike anywhere else in the world.
The Big Island's Agricultural Advantage
The practical agricultural case for the Big Island as a farm to table destination is straightforward and extraordinary. This single island contains eleven of the thirteen climate zones that exist on Earth, from tropical sea level to alpine desert near the summits of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. That compressed geographic diversity means an astonishing range of ingredients can be grown within a relatively small area, and those ingredients can reach a restaurant kitchen within hours of harvest.
Waimea, the cool upcountry town at around 2,500 to 2,700 feet elevation, produces tender lettuces, root vegetables, and cool-season crops that would be difficult to grow in the tropics at sea level. It is also the heart of the Big Island's ranching culture. Parker Ranch, one of the largest privately owned cattle ranches in the United States, is based here, and its beef appears on menus across the island. The Kona coast, where our farm sits at around 1,400 feet, is home to the world's most geographically defined coffee appellation. You can read more about which altitude is best for growing Kona coffee and understand why our specific elevation matters so much to the flavor in your cup. Hilo on the east side receives abundant rainfall and produces a lush variety of tropical fruits, anthuriums, and specialty crops. The Hamakua Coast north of Hilo has become famous for exotic mushrooms and vanilla. The Kohala Coast supports coastal fishing that supplies fresh fish to restaurants across the island.
Compare this to Oahu, where urban development has claimed most agricultural land and restaurants often rely on inter-island shipping for local ingredients. Or Maui, which has stronger agriculture than Oahu but nothing approaching the geographic diversity of the Big Island. The Big Island is simply the best-positioned island in the Hawaiian chain to support a true farm to table culture, and its restaurant community has taken full advantage of that position.
The Big Island's Farm to Table Regions, Where to Eat and Why
The Big Island is large, covering about 4,028 square miles. That is larger than all the other Hawaiian islands combined. If you are planning a farm to table focused trip, it helps to understand which regions have the strongest dining cultures and how they connect to the farms that supply them. Here is a practical geographic breakdown to help you plan.
Waimea (Kamuela), Ranch Country and Refined Farm Kitchens
Waimea is the spiritual home of Big Island farm to table dining. This cool upcountry town, often shrouded in mist in the morning and bathed in golden afternoon light, sits at the base of the Kohala Mountains on the northern part of the island. The air is cooler here than on the coast, and the landscape transitions from tropical to something that looks more like the rolling hills of New Zealand or rural California. Parker Ranch's vast pastures surround the town. Small family farms producing vegetables, herbs, goat cheese, and specialty crops dot the hillsides. Waimea exists in a constant state of agricultural abundance, and the restaurant community reflects that.
Merriman's Waimea is the anchor restaurant for this entire region, and in many ways for the entire farm to table movement in Hawaii. Peter Merriman opened the restaurant in Waimea specifically to be close to the farms and ranches that would supply it. The restaurant's sourcing philosophy is not aspirational. It is structural. The menu changes with what is available, and the farmers who grow for the restaurant are acknowledged as partners, not just suppliers. When you dine at Merriman's, you are eating inside the farm to table story rather than consuming a version of it that has been packaged for comfort. Merriman's describes this relationship as a commitment that has been built over decades, and you can taste that longevity in the food.
Beyond Merriman's, Waimea supports a broader dining culture that skews toward quality and authenticity rather than tourist polish. Local favorite lunch spots, small cafes, and farmers markets make the town worth spending significant time in rather than just passing through on the way to a resort. The Waimea Town Market on Saturday mornings is particularly worth attending as a supplement to restaurant dining. You will find the same farmers who supply the best restaurants selling directly to the public, and the quality of produce available is a farm to table experience in itself. As How to Live in Hawaii notes in its 2026 dining guide, Waimea remains one of the most underappreciated dining destinations in the entire state, partly because it lacks the beach resort infrastructure that draws most visitors to other areas.
Kona Coast, Coffee Country Meets Coastal Cuisine
The Kona coast is the most tourist-visited part of the Big Island, and its restaurant scene ranges from resort fine dining to casual fish tacos on the pier. What unifies the best of Kona's food culture is the presence of an ingredient that has no peer anywhere else in the United States: estate-grown Kona coffee. Coffee appears on Kona menus not just as a beverage but as a culinary ingredient, a flavoring agent, a dessert component, and a cultural touchstone that connects every meal to the volcanic slopes rising behind the town.
Kailua-Kona itself has a dense concentration of restaurants serving everything from Hawaiian poke to continental cuisine. The resort corridor stretching north along the Kohala Coast adds another layer of fine dining options, many of which make genuine commitments to local sourcing despite operating within large hospitality companies. What sets the best Kona area restaurants apart is their willingness to integrate coffee into the food experience rather than treating it as a separate beverage category. You might find a Kona coffee-rubbed short rib, a coffee reduction on a dessert plate, or an estate single-origin pourover paired specifically with the cheese course. This kind of integration is only possible when the ingredient is grown locally and the chef has a direct relationship with the producer.
Holualoa, the small village where our farm is located, sits just above Kailua-Kona and offers a quieter, more immersive alternative to the busier coastal scene. The village is home to galleries, small shops, and a handful of food experiences that feel genuinely connected to the land. Visiting Holualoa is the farm to table experience before the restaurant experience. You can taste coffee at the source, see the trees, smell the fermentation during harvest season, and understand exactly where the flavor in your cup begins. If you want to understand what a true farm tasting feels like, you can explore what a Hawaii farm tasting in Kona actually involves. For a deeper look at what makes estate-grown coffee different from commercially blended products, we have written at length about Hawaii estate-grown coffee and why traceability matters so much to what ends up in your cup.
Hilo and the Hamakua Coast, Market Culture and Tropical Abundance
Hilo sits on the rainy east side of the island and operates on a different rhythm from the sun-drenched resort areas of the west coast. It is a working town with a deep multicultural history, strong community roots, and a food culture that has always prioritized local sourcing not as a dining trend but as a matter of economic and cultural identity. Hilo restaurants tend to be smaller, less expensive, and more deeply embedded in local life than their counterparts in Kona or the Kohala resort corridor. That is not a limitation. It is a strength.
The Hilo Farmers Market, held multiple days per week at the corner of Kamehameha Avenue and Mamo Street, is one of the most compelling farm to table experiences on the entire island. Local growers bring tropical fruits, vegetables, flowers, honey, and prepared foods directly to market. You can speak with the farmer who grew your papaya, taste six varieties of banana from a single vendor, and watch Hilo locals navigating the stalls with the quiet confidence of people who know exactly what they are looking for. For visitors who want to understand the agricultural backbone of Big Island cuisine, an early morning at the Hilo Farmers Market is indispensable. As Hawaii Guide points out, Hilo's market culture is one of the most authentic expressions of local food sourcing available to any visitor to the island.
The Hamakua Coast, stretching north from Hilo along a spectacular shoreline of sea cliffs and gulches, has become famous for specialty agricultural products that now appear on menus island-wide. Hamakua mushrooms, particularly ali'i and king oyster varieties, are grown in controlled environments near the coast and prized by chefs for their texture and flavor. Hamakua vanilla is among the highest quality vanilla grown in the United States. Tropical fruits grown in the lush Hamakua valleys, including rambutan, longan, lychee, and multiple varieties of citrus, contribute to the tropical abundance that characterizes Big Island menus. These ingredients support the broader farm to table story even when you are dining far from Hilo. If you want to explore the range of specialty products grown on and around the Big Island, our guide to Hawaii Big Island treats goes into more detail about what makes this island's agricultural output so distinctive.
Standout Farm to Table Restaurants on the Big Island
With a geographic and philosophical foundation established, it is time to get specific. The following restaurants represent the best of farm to table dining on the Big Island in 2026, organized by region. This is not an exhaustive list of every good restaurant on the island. It is a curated selection of places where farm sourcing is genuine, verifiable, and central to the dining experience rather than a secondary marketing claim.
Waimea's Must-Visit Dining Rooms
Merriman's Waimea remains the benchmark against which every other farm to table restaurant in Hawaii is measured. The restaurant has been operating since 1988, and its sourcing relationships with local farms and ranches have only deepened over the decades. The menu changes seasonally and sometimes weekly, reflecting what the land is actually producing rather than what a fixed menu requires. Parker Ranch beef appears in multiple preparations. Local vegetables, many grown within a few miles of the restaurant, fill the vegetable components of each plate. The wine program includes thoughtful pairings, but the coffee program is equally considered, with estate Kona coffees served as a serious beverage category rather than an afterthought.
Practical guidance for visiting Merriman's Waimea: reservations are essential and should be made as far in advance as possible, particularly during the winter high season from November through March and the summer period around July and August. The restaurant fills up quickly because it is both a local institution and a destination for visitors. If you can visit on a weeknight, you are more likely to secure a table with reasonable lead time. Ask your server about the current sourcing for each dish. The staff are knowledgeable and genuinely proud of the farm relationships that the restaurant maintains. The menu's most reliable stars are the preparations that showcase Parker Ranch beef, the fresh fish from local waters, and whatever vegetable preparation reflects the peak of the current season. As both Wanderlustyle and Merriman's themselves describe, the restaurant's commitment to local sourcing is not a recent addition but the foundational principle from which everything else follows.
Beyond Merriman's, Waimea supports several other worthwhile dining options. Local cafes and lunch spots near the town center offer simpler expressions of the same farm-forward philosophy at lower price points. These are places where local farmers and ranch workers eat lunch, which is often the strongest possible endorsement of a restaurant's connection to its community. Keep your eyes open for small plate lunch operations, roadside stands, and market day vendors who bring the same local ingredients to a more casual format.
Kona and Kohala Coast Restaurants with Farm Credentials
The Kohala Coast resort corridor contains some of the most expensive real estate and most lavishly appointed restaurants in the state of Hawaii. Some of these restaurants make genuine and verifiable commitments to local sourcing. Others use farm to table language as a marketing tool without the underlying relationships to support it. Learning to distinguish between the two will make you a more effective diner anywhere on the island.
The most reliable signal of genuine farm to table commitment on a menu is specificity. A menu that says "locally sourced fish" is making a vague claim. A menu that says "fresh onaga from Captain Jason's vessel out of Kawaihae" is making a specific, traceable claim. Farm names, fisherman names, rancher names: these are the indicators that a chef has actual relationships with producers rather than purchasing through anonymous distributors. When you see a coffee listed as "Kona coffee," ask whether it is a specific estate or a blend. The difference matters, as we explore in our writing about which Big Island restaurants list exclusive Kona roasts. Restaurants that have taken the time to source a specific estate roast are demonstrating a level of ingredient care that extends to everything else on the menu.
Mid-range and casual restaurants in the Kailua-Kona town area often show stronger genuine local sourcing than some of the resort properties, partly because they depend more directly on community relationships and have less marketing budget available to paper over sourcing gaps. Fish markets that double as lunch counters, poke shops that name their fishermen, and small plate cafes that post their vegetable sourcing on a chalkboard are all expressions of the same farm to table ethic operating at a different price point. How to Live in Hawaii and Hula Land Blog both offer strong current guides to navigating the Kona dining scene with an eye toward genuine local credentials rather than resort gloss.
Hidden Gems and Local Favorites Beyond the Resort Belt
Some of the most honest farm to table eating on the Big Island happens in places that never appear on a glossy travel magazine's recommended restaurant list. Plate lunch culture is an underappreciated but genuinely local expression of farm to table eating. The plate lunch format, a generous scoop of rice, a serving of macaroni salad, and a protein prepared in a style that reflects Hawaii's multicultural culinary heritage, is not fine dining. But at its best, it uses local ingredients in time-honored preparations that reflect the actual food culture of the island rather than a tourist-ready version of it.
Farmers markets function as dining experiences in themselves, not just as places to buy ingredients to cook at home. The Hilo Farmers Market on Wednesday and Saturday mornings is the largest and most comprehensive. The Kona Community Market in Kailua-Kona offers a more intimate experience with strong artisan food presence. Smaller community markets scattered around the island, in Waimea, Volcano, Na'alehu, and Pahoa, connect you with producers and prepared food vendors who represent the most direct possible farm to table transaction. You hand money to the person who grew or made what you are eating. That is farm to table in its most elemental form, and it costs a fraction of what a resort dinner costs while delivering a more direct connection to the land.
For visitors who want to bring the farm to table experience home in edible form, the Big Island offers a remarkable range of food gifts and gourmet products that represent the island's agricultural identity. OpenTable diner reviews can be a useful tool for discovering well-regarded local spots that have not yet crossed into mainstream travel media. Filtering by neighborhood and looking at reviews that mention specific local ingredients or farm relationships will help you identify restaurants worth seeking out beyond the obvious high-profile names. We have also written about the range of Hawaii gourmet snacks that represent the island's food culture in gift form, which can be a useful complement to your restaurant experiences.
Kona Coffee as a Farm to Table Ingredient, From Cherry to Cup to Kitchen
Coffee is an agricultural product. That statement sounds obvious, but it is worth sitting with for a moment, because most people experience coffee in a form so far removed from its agricultural origins that the connection has become invisible. At Buddha's Cup, we work to make that connection visible again, because we believe that understanding how coffee grows, how it is processed, and how roast decisions shape flavor is exactly the same kind of knowledge that makes you a better, more appreciative diner when it comes to any farm to table ingredient.
Why Kona Coffee Belongs in the Farm to Table Conversation
Kona coffee follows the same seed-to-table logic as any other farm to table ingredient. A coffee cherry grows on a tree in volcanic soil at a specific elevation with a specific microclimate. It is harvested at peak ripeness, usually by hand because the terrain and the need for selective picking make mechanical harvesting impractical. It is processed through wet or dry milling methods that strip away the fruit and prepare the seed, the green coffee bean, for roasting. It is then roasted to bring out the specific flavor compounds that the terroir and the cultivar have developed. Every decision along that chain affects what ends up in the cup, just as every decision in a vegetable's growing, harvesting, and cooking chain affects what ends up on the plate.
The Kona coffee belt is one of the most geographically defined coffee appellations in the world. It runs along the western slopes of Mauna Loa and Hualalai between approximately 500 and 3,000 feet elevation, with the majority of farms concentrated between 800 and 2,000 feet. The soil is volcanic, mineral-rich, and exceptionally well-drained. The climate provides warm mornings, cloud cover in the afternoons that moderates temperature and provides natural irrigation, and cool nights that slow the development of the coffee cherry and allow complex flavors to develop. This specific combination of factors cannot be replicated anywhere else. As we explore in our writing about which altitude is best for growing Kona coffee, elevation within the belt matters significantly to the final cup character.
Estate-grown coffee, where the entire production chain from tree to roast happens on a single farm, offers the same traceability advantage that estate-grown produce offers. When you buy a Kona coffee blend from a mass distributor, you have no way of knowing which farms' beans are in the bag, what processing methods were used, or whether the coffee was grown to the quality standards that justify Kona's premium price. When you buy estate-grown Kona directly from a farm, you have complete traceability. This matters for flavor, for quality assurance, and for fair economic relationships with the people who grew the coffee. As Hawaii Guide notes, the best Big Island restaurants that serve Kona coffee are increasingly making this distinction, choosing estate sources over generic blends. You can read more about what Hawaii estate-grown coffee means in practice and why it matters.
How Buddha's Cup Grows, Processes, and Roasts on the Farm
Our farm in Holualoa sits at approximately 1,400 feet above sea level, within the most productive section of the Kona coffee belt. We planted Kona Typica trees, the cultivar that has been grown in this region for over a century and that produces the distinctively bright, floral, medium-bodied cup that defines classic Kona coffee. Each tree is tended year-round, with selective hand-picking during the harvest season, which runs roughly from August through January, with peak harvest typically in October and November.
Hand-picking is essential to quality because Kona Typica trees do not ripen all their cherries simultaneously. A single branch may carry green cherries, yellow cherries, red cherries at peak ripeness, and over-ripe dark cherries all at the same time. Only by picking selectively, returning to each tree multiple times during the harvest season and taking only the ripe red cherries, can you achieve the flavor consistency that distinguishes premium Kona from commodity coffee. This is labor-intensive work, and it is one of the reasons estate-grown Kona coffee commands a premium price.
After picking, we process our cherries through careful drying. The drying phase is a critical quality control point. Kona's afternoon cloud cover and moderate temperatures during harvest season create favorable drying conditions, but careful monitoring of humidity and drying time is essential. Improper drying can introduce defects that no amount of expert roasting can correct. We have written about what ideal humidity levels for drying Kona beans look like in practice, because we think this part of the process deserves more attention than it typically receives in coffee conversations.
Roasting is where the farm's character gets translated into cup flavor. We roast on-site, which means we can make decisions about roast level with direct knowledge of what the green coffee is capable of expressing. Kona Typica at its best expresses bright citrus notes, floral aromatics, a smooth medium body, and a clean finish with mild acidity. Light to medium roast profiles preserve these characteristics most faithfully. Darker roasts emphasize body and bittersweet chocolate notes but can mask the floral brightness that makes Kona distinctive. We have written at length about which roasting profile preserves Kona coffee's floral notes, and we encourage you to explore that piece if you want to understand how roast decisions shape what you taste.
Kona Coffee in the Kitchen, Pairings, Desserts, and Rum Cake
The best Big Island chefs have discovered what home cooks in coffee-growing cultures have known for generations: coffee is as versatile a culinary ingredient as any spice, herb, or flavoring agent. Ground Kona coffee appears in spice rubs for grilled meats, adding depth and a subtle bitterness that balances the natural sweetness of Big Island ranch beef. Coffee reductions appear as sauces for desserts and sometimes for savory proteins. Cold brew concentrates are used in cocktails, cake batters, and ice cream bases. The flavor compound range in a well-roasted Kona bean, with its fruit notes, floral aromatics, and clean finish, makes it an unusually sophisticated cooking ingredient.
At Buddha's Cup, the intersection of farm-grown coffee and Hawaiian culinary tradition finds its most accessible expression in our rum cakes. We bake our rum cakes using our own estate-grown Kona coffee as a primary flavoring ingredient, combined with Hawaiian sugarcane rum produced locally on the Big Island. The result is a dense, moist, deeply flavored cake that carries the terroir of the island in every bite. The coffee contributes bitterness and depth. The rum, made from sugarcane that is part of the Big Island's agricultural history, adds sweetness and a distinctive island character. If you want to understand the agricultural story behind the rum in our cakes, we have written about when sugarcane is harvested for Hawaiian rum and how that seasonal cycle connects to the broader agricultural calendar of the island.
As a beverage pairing alongside food, estate Kona coffee rewards thoughtful matching. Its brightness and floral notes complement the clean flavors of fresh tropical fruits, particularly papaya, mango, and pineapple. Its smooth body and mild acidity make it an excellent companion to macadamia nut desserts, coconut-based preparations, and the gentle sweetness of Hawaiian sweet bread. For savory pairings, Kona's acidity can balance the richness of grass-fed ranch beef preparations. If you are building a farm to table meal and want to incorporate Kona coffee as a beverage pairing rather than just a post-dinner drink, treat it with the same intentionality you would bring to wine selection. Consider the roast level, the flavor notes, and what you are eating. The pairing possibilities are genuinely exciting when you approach Kona coffee as the agricultural product it is. For more inspiration on edible gifts and food products that capture the Big Island's agricultural identity, our guide to Hawaii gourmet snacks and tastes of paradise offers a useful starting point.
Mamaki Tea and Native Hawaiian Botanicals at the Farm to Table Table
Coffee rightly dominates the conversation about Hawaiian farm to table beverages, but