Bill To Guard Against Imitation Hawaiian Tea Could End Up Hurting Industry

It’s been a rocky year for Matt and Andrea Drayer, two of the state’s largest growers of Hawaiian māmaki tea. In late 2024, the company saw the closing of its largest buyer, Shaka Tea, whose bottled, ready-to-drink māmaki beverages created a new market for the Hawaiian herb.

The Drayer’s 25-acre Ancient Valley Growers farm on the Big Island and a neighboring māmaki ranch they manage previously sold as much as 1,000 pounds per day of wet māmaki to Shaka Tea and another 1,000 pounds per month of dry tea to other buyers. The bulk of their business vanished overnight when Shaka Tea went out of business, Matt Drayer said.

Now, a bill passed by the Legislature intended to help farmers like the Drayers could have the opposite effect by restricting the sale of māmaki mixed with other herbs, such as mint and lavender. Other māmaki proponents have raised the same concern, saying the bill could unintentionally hurt the māmaki industry as it’s poised for growth.

“I think it would be safe to say it would be the nail in the coffin because we’re already hurting,” Matt Drayer said of the measure.

Māmaki is a non-caffeinated tea endemic to Hawaiʻi, used for centuries as a Native Hawaiian medicinal herb. In recent years, it has gone from something Native Hawaiian healers foraged from island forests to a small but full-fledged cash crop.

The herbal beverage is now offered at tea services in upscale hotels and on grocery store shelves as ready-made drinks and sparkling teas, flavored with natural ingredients like mint, ginger and lavender.

This year, lawmakers stepped in with a māmaki bill to help what they dubbed “a growing agricultural commodity.” The measure is aimed at heading off potential counterfeiters who might grow māmaki elsewhere but sell it as Hawaiian māmaki. That’s also a major issue for Hawaiʻi coffee farmers that has taken more than a decade to address.

But the potential negative side effects of the māmaki bill underscore the complex challenge policymakers face when drafting legislation to protect Hawaiʻi-grown agricultural products. Hawaiʻi coffee and macadamia nut growers for years have pushed for stricter labeling requirements to prevent out-of-state counterfeits from being sold as Hawaiian.

Lawmakers passed a measure this year requiring sellers of raw ahi to label the country of origin of the yellowfin tuna used for things like poke and sashimi.

Byron Goo, a Native Hawaiian teamaker and principal of the firm Tea Chest Hawaiʻi, applauds the macadamia nut, coffee and ahi policies, saying the ability to label agricultural items as being from Hawaiʻi should be protected as intellectual property, like a trademark.

But Goo said the māmaki bill could hurt people throughout the supply chain, from farmers to retailers.

Labeling laws make sense in industries where demand has outpaced local supply and non-Hawaiian substitutes have entered the market to fill the gap, Goo wrote in testimony to the Senate Ways and Means Committee this past session.

“Māmaki is not like those products,” he wrote. “Demand does not outstrip local supply and māmaki only grows in Hawai‘i so there are no counterfeits.”

The bill as written, he said in an interview, “can break companies.”

Bill To “Ensure the Viability of Māmaki Tea”

Introduced by Rep. Kirstin Kahaloa, whose Big Island district includes the Drayers’ farm and coffee-rich Kona, the bill imposes restrictions on māmaki packages. Only packages containing 100% māmaki grown in Hawaiʻi can use the word “māmaki.”

Teamakers also can’t use words like “Hawaiʻi” and “Hawaiian” or Hawaiian imagery or place names unless 100% of the tea or dried leaves “were cultivated, harvested, and dried in the State.”

The bill, which is awaiting Gov. Josh Green’s signature, provides $65,000 for a full-time inspector to enforce the terms.

The issue, Goo and others say, isn’t the bill’s intent to protect Hawaiian māmaki.

Rather, it’s that the bill as written could ban using the word “māmaki” on packages containing additional leaves of any kind – not just māmaki, but mint, rosehips, lavender and other tea varieties – if all the leaves in the tea blend aren’t grown and processed in Hawaiʻi.

Producers might even be banned from using the word māmaki on a tea’s ingredients list, even if the māmaki itself was 100% Hawaiian, Goo said.

Kahaloa didn’t respond to calls for comment. But the bill says “the implementation of labeling requirements would ensure the viability of Hawai‘i-grown māmaki tea.”

Lawmakers and agricultural industry stakeholders agreed. 

The measure sailed through five hearings without a “no” vote. Supporters included the Hawaiʻi Farm Bureau; Hawaiʻi Food + Policy, which gives college students and young farmers experience in civic engagement, and the Hawaiʻi Farmers Union United, which represents small farmers and ranchers.

The Hawaiʻi Department of Agriculture expressed its strong support, writing that the bill “provides māmaki tea the protection afforded to other valuable agricultural crops like coffee and macadamia nuts.”

Hunter Heaivilin, the farmers’ union policy director, commended lawmakers for being vigilant for the sake of farmers and consumers.

“Truth in labeling and disclosing what products they’re buying and the provenance of those products is important to a local agricultural sector,” he said in an interview.

Among those who voted for the bill was Hawaiʻi Sen. Donovan Dela Cruz, the influential chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, who owns a māmaki farm in Kunia and a company called Kilani Brew Handcrafted Tea

Dela Cruz did not respond to requests for comment placed with his office and the Hawaiʻi Senate communications office.

Proposed Amendments Went Nowhere

The bill faced no opposition until it reached Dela Cruz’s Ways and Means Committee. At that point, Goo stepped up — along with the Hawaii Food Industry Association, which represents 200 food and beverage companies in the state, including retailers, suppliers, producers, manufacturers and distributors.

The association outlined its concerns in testimony, pointing out that māmaki tea often includes ingredients like mango, mint and others that aren’t commercially available in the islands.

“We do not believe the intent of this measure is to ban products such as those mentioned above, or prohibit Māmaki products that contain other ingredients from using the word Māmaki or Hawaiian Grown on the label,” the association wrote.

The association suggested an amendment to “specify that the requirement for the dried tea and leaves to be locally grown only applies to the Māmaki and not all ingredients.” It went nowhere.

Drayer said other ingredients can be grown and processed in Hawaiʻi, but not at a large scale.  It’s important to be able to sell māmaki mixed with those ingredients to a public that’s not yet familiar with māmaki, he said.

“It’s very difficult to sell only māmaki,” Drayer said. “That’s just the reality. They don’t know what it is.”

The Hawaiʻi Farm Bureau, which testified in support of the bill, now recognizes potential negative unintended consequences.

“The last thing we want to do is hurt our farmers,” said Brian Miyamoto, the bureau’s executive director, adding that the organization had thought the measure “was a no-brainer.”

Jordan Westerholm, manager of Hawaii Forest Farms on the Big Island, said it makes sense to amend the bill in the future to clarify ambiguities and avoid unintended consequences. But he said that’s no reason for Green to veto the bill.

“I hope people will not use this as an opportunity to get the bill taken down altogether,” he said.

Tea Maker: Bill Could Hurt Industry

Goo said the bill could kill the Hawaiian māmaki business just as it’s getting traction with consumers. His company has been selling and promoting māmaki for 15 years. Its products include one, called ʻIolani Palace Tea Collection, sold at the palace gift shop.

Goo said he’s long sought to grow the industry in a pono or righteous way, helping farmers learn how to grow the crop and prepare it to sell to wholesalers.

The bill could cause a cascade of problems for Tea Chest if it goes into effect on July 1 as expected. The company would have to quit selling many of its māmaki items, Goo said. He also suspects he would have to remove the product from store shelves and repay clients for products he’s sold them.

Finally, there’s the effect on farmers.

Drayer said his farm suffered a major blow late last year when Shaka Tea, his biggest customer, announced it was going out of business. Losing more customers, including Tea Chest, would be another blow.

“This is what happens,” he said, “when people who have never touched dirt start telling farmers how to do things.”

“Hawai‘i Grown” is funded in part by grants from the Stupski Foundation, Ulupono Fund at the Hawai‘i Community Foundation and the Frost Family Foundation.