Eva has been the leading light of the Hawaiian tea growers, lobbying the local authorities into offering financial support. She was also instrumental in setting up the Hawaii Tea Society, a nonprofit organization open to tea growers and enthusiasts. Among other things, she organizes and speaks at workshops, teaches propagation and manufacture, explores collaboration with tea growers in other tea-growing regions, cooperates with local chefs to encourage the use of tea as a culinary ingredient, and sells her own and other locally made teas at farmers’ markets all over the Hawaii Island and online through THC.
THC’s Mauka Oolong comes from Mike Riley’s Volcano Tea Gardens. Mike was introduced to tea 15 years ago when he met Dr. Francis Zee of the U.S. Development Agricultural Research Service. Dr. Zee had just discovered a hedge of tea planted during earlier research in the 1950s and shared with Mike a pot of tea brewed with leaves from those bushes. Mike was fascinated and captivated. He says, “The pursuit of tea has opened a door into a world that is full of mystique and wonder. It has given me the simple pleasure of watching a crop grow and of learning the ancient knowledge required to transform it into something wonderful.”
