Tasting Hawaii

Meet the entrepreneurs behind the Aloha State's budding industry, agritourism, and bring an appetite!

Fruit from a nutmeg tree.
The farm is profitable because of its diversity of crops and customers. It sells directly to chefs, through specialty distributors and wholesalers, and at farmers' markets. Hill also owns a garden store in Hilo that sells plants and imported Indonesian crafts and furniture. The couple are proud of their farm but shy about becoming a major tourist destination. "We're a working farm," Hill says apologetically. Your best bet is to go through Hawaii Agventures (hawaiiagventures.com), a marketing initiative from Big Island Farm Bureau, which schedules tours by appointment.

We sit down at a picnic table to talk and hear the couple's stories of high jinks in rural Indonesia and shipping mishaps with their notoriously stinky durian fruit packed onto commercial flights. (The passengers above the cargo hold were none too pleased.) That's when it comes to me that the fun of agritourism is equal parts land and people. I mention to Crowell that I enjoy meeting the farmers as much as seeing their crops, and he smiles. "We're an eclectic group of fruits and nuts."

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Coffee, tea and - geckos The author tours Hawaii's farms, and sees some surprising sights. (more)
Raising 5 kids, 300 pounds of vanilla The Reddekopps are growing a big family and a profitable vanilla business in Hawaii. (more)
Getting buzzed in Hawaii Tasting different types of java on a coffee mill tour. (more)

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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.