Takahiro Ino, co-owner of the Mauna Kea Tea, is so obsessed by drinking Green Tea that his passion is now learning and teaching others about it. After extensive travel in Japan and China, learning about the best quality green, oolong and black teas, he is determined to produce only the best on his own farm. He is most interested in producing tea grown under strict management of organic production with utmost respect for the land.

Taka studied Environmental Sciences at University of California, Berkeley.  During his school years he studied environmental approaches to many issues, but he was especially interested in environmentally friendly farming practices.  He took farm courses and studied soil life in the farm environment, but his true learning came from spending much time in the wilderness, in the wild, living off the land, studying the amazing power of nature itself.  Some people thought he was crazy, but he thought it was only the beginning. 

He approaches his farming as gardening on a larger scale.  As many farms are designed to operate for maximum efficiency in harvest, maintenance, and production.  Taka rather adds curves and principals of energy flow into his field design. 

"It has to be a comforting and healing place to be.  It does not only produce tea.  I work with the plants and the land to create an amazing space and time.  Other people in the field also have to have positive energy."

He studies and experiments with various types of farming practices, soil amendments and timings of feeding.  

"Conventional farming is to feed the plants but in the process, everything else is suppressed.  Earthworms and soil bacteria work well for the soil as long as there is food available to feed them.   We feed the soil's life so that it can feed the plants - naturally."