Picture by Sarah Burchard.
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A very powerful factor you are able to do when visiting any island is to help its native financial system. In Hawaiʻi, among the best methods to try this is by supporting native agriculture. You are able to do this by occurring farm excursions, buying locally-grown components and purchasing at farmers markets.
Though the archipelago was as soon as fully self-sustaining with a sturdy meals system, Hawai’i now depends on imported meals for 85% to 90% of its wants. As a meals lover and former chef, the very first thing I did after I moved to Hawaiʻi 9 years in the past was to plug into the native farming neighborhood, so I may supply the freshest components and help native agriculture. As a traveler, I do the identical factor wherever I’m going. You’ll at all times discover the very best meals when itʻs regionally produced.
Based on the Maui County Farm Bureau, Maui is residence to over 800 farms. Over a dozen host farm excursions. Whereas you’ll have the chance to be taught and style fantastic issues in any respect of them, listed below are just a few that provide one thing additional particular. Take a look at these farm excursions subsequent time you go to Maui.
Proprietor of ʻOkoʻa Farms, Ryan Earhart, is on his strategy to producing 500,000 kilos of meals this yr. Picture by Sarah Burchard.
‘Oko’a Farms – Farm tour and tasting + farm-to-table dinners
With no farming expertise, Ryan Earhart began ‘Oko’a Farms in 2004 on a patch of dry, undernourished land. 21 years later, due to his curiosity, ingenuity and relentless onerous work – regardless of many hardships – his farm now grows over 100 completely different crops. At this time, it provides a farmers market in Wailea (quickly to be a brick-and-mortar retailer) and his personal farm shop in Kula, which in flip helps greater than 100 native distributors.
The tour begins in a quaint backyard simply off the farmhouse, the place giant trays of contemporary dragon fruit, star fruit, guava, jaboticaba, carrots and radishes are served with a house-made macadamia nut-herb dip.
Seated on benches fabricated from recycled mango wooden, friends are launched to Dr. Carolyn Dean – a medical physician, naturopath, meals safety activist and supporter of the farm from day one. She invested within the farm in 2020 when Earhart’s landlord deliberate to promote the land. Like a fairy godmother, Dean swooped in and helped Earhart buy the property, securing the farm’s future.
Earhart’s ardour is connecting folks to their meals, and it exhibits. As he leads the tour, he picks fruit off bushes for friends to pattern, pulls carrots straight from the earth and explains every crop intimately—darting across the farm like an excited child on Christmas morning. There’s sugar cane, banana bushes, pineapple, 1,000 chickens and rows upon rows of produce—every part from turnips to asparagus. Like many farms in Kula, the property additionally boasts breathtaking ocean views.
Friends also can go to the farm within the early night for a farm-to-table dinner ready by Earhart himself following the tour.
Book ʻOkoʻa Farms Upcountry Family Farm Tour
Book ʻOkoʻa Farms Sunset Culinary Immersion: Farm-to-Table Dinner Experience
Farm tour information Kerry Glen welcomes friends into the cacao orchard at Kuʻia Property. Picture by Sarah Burchard.
Ku’ia Property Chocolate – Farm tour, tasting and sundown jazz
Dr. Gunars Valkirs, a biophysicist who invented the fast response being pregnant check and numerous cardiovascular well being diagnostics, started rising cacao and making award-winning chocolate in Lahaina in 2020 as a retirement mission.
Seven days per week you may tour his 20-acre farm the place he makes use of agroforestry to domesticate a loving surroundings for 100 types of cacao. The excursions leads you thru a forest of panax (often called “false espresso”) bushes, which block wind alongside the perimeter, neem bushes, which maintain the pests away and cacao bushes.
Ultimately, you’ll attain a two-story gazebo overlooking the orchard. With sweeping ocean views, you’ll style a minimum of 9 types of chocolate – coffee-flavored, milk chocolate, darkish chocolate and sugar-free – made with estate-grown beans. The corporate additionally affords all kinds of flavored goodies utilizing beans sourced from Costa Esmeralda, a farm in Ecuador with shut ties to Dr. Valkirs.
As a darkish chocolate lover, I discovered the sugar-free chocolate particularly attention-grabbing. As a substitute of synthetic sweeteners like Truvia or Stevia, Dr. Valkirs makes use of allulose – a naturally occurring sugar with an analogous chemical construction to sucrose however much less candy and no caloric absorption by the physique. I additionally beloved the calamansi-flavored darkish chocolate and the property’s bean-to-bar darkish chocolate.
After the tour, you’ll return to the chocolate manufacturing unit and café, which is 100% solar-powered. Right here, you should purchase chocolate bars, drinks and desserts made with Kuʻia Property Chocolate. Don’t miss the chocolate milkshake.
On Sunday evenings, head upstairs for a glass of wine and a free sundown jazz live performance.
All income from gross sales are donated to native non-profit organizations similar to Maui Meals Financial institution and the Maui Humane Society.
Book a Maui Ku’ia Estate Guided Cacao Farm Tour and Tasting
Book a Maui Ku’ia Estate Chocolate Factory Experience
One other sampling of Oʻo Farm bean-to-cup espresso earlier than brunch is served. Picture by Sarah Burchard.
O’o Farm – Espresso tasting, farm tour and brunch
Begin your morning with a cup of freshly brewed espresso whereas taking in views of Central and West Maui all the best way to the ocean. Oʻo Farm grows, processes and roasts its espresso completely on web site – 3,500-feet up within the district of Kula. After a tasting and primer on espresso manufacturing, you’ll tour the farm, which options as much as 130 types of fruits, greens, herbs and flowers throughout eight acres of lush, hilly fields.
When house owners Louis Coulombe and Stephan Bel-Robert bought the land in 2000 they started with espresso, finally increasing into produce to provide their Lahaina restaurant, Pacificʻo on the Seashore. After the restaurant tragically burned down in the course of the Maui wildfires in August 2023, they started internet hosting farm-to-table dinners on the farm, which had already been welcoming guests for excursions since 2007.
Ultimately, the tour ends at an outside kitchen shaded by tall bushes and framed by that very same beautiful view. Right here, the farm’s chef prepares a brunch feast made virtually completely from components grown on web site. Among the many three programs have been pastries, salads, sliced fruit, frittata, freshly baked bread and all of the espresso we may drink.
Book an Oʻo Farm Seed-to-Cup Coffee, Brunch & Farm Tour
Book and Oʻo Farm-to-Table Lunch & Farm Tour
Waikulu Distillery makes its spirits from the identical 200 agave crops proprietor Paul Turner planted in 2012. Picture by Sarah Burchard
Waikulu Distillery – Agave Farm Tour and Spirit Tasting
Go to Hawaiʻi’s solely agave spirits farm and distillery. As a result of “Tequila” is a protected designation of origin that may solely be utilized in particular areas of Mexico, Waikulu Distillery refers to its product as “agave spirits.” Like Tequila, Waikulu spirits are made with a minimum of 51% blue weber agave – all grown onsite.
Proprietor and distiller Paul Turner has been stewarding this land for over 20 years with a minimal environmental footprint. He planted agave in 2012, a plant so resilient it requires no irrigation. The distillery runs completely on solar energy.
Excursions embrace a stroll via the agave fields, with alternatives to observe staff harvest the plant and minimize it all the way down to its piña (core). You’ll additionally see the custom-built ovens and agave crusher Turner designed himself. Friends can style a bit of freshly steamed agave – cooked for 2 days till absolutely caramelized.
After the tour, you’ll pattern a collection of Waikulu’s silver and barrel-aged agave spirits. My favourite was a smoky, barely spicy spirit infused with chipotle and arbol chiles. All Wailuku spirits are made with wild yeast and 0 components – a rarity within the Tequila enterprise. The distillery produces solely 10,000 to 12,000 bottles per yr. Except for just a few grocery shops, bars and resorts on Maui, the one place you should purchase them is on the distillery itself.
