Dog Picked Tea

Tea growers in Hawaii face a bright opportunity to build the next great tea growing region of the world. Hawaii’s volcanic soil provides an acidic environment for Camellia sinensis and year round rainfall and mild climate lead to thriving gardens. Many tea lovers have grown a strong interest in Hawaii Grown Tea, but few have splurged due to high prices (some tea is retailing for $4700/lbs). In an effort to bring down the production costs Hawaii tea growers have turned to help from their best friends; their dogs.

The revolutionary of this movement is Supakets the Ninja Tea Farmer of Oahu. He began growing tea last year and has already started to train his dog Scooby on the ancient art of tea cultivation. Dogs have played an important role at tea farms for centuries, serving as the protectors of the field, but Supakets’ hope is that Scooby will be much more than just a guard dog. Scooby is already skilled in fertilizing, soil aeration and weeding. After Scooby’s training he will be expected to know how to pluck two leaves and bud with 100% accuracy and Supakets is already working with machinists to retrofit a Japanese harvester so Scooby can assist with trimming and machine harvesting. Scooby will serve as a guide for other dogs as Supakets trains dogs of other tea growers from neighbor islands. This is the first human-animal collaboration of its kind in the tea world. It is legend that tea growers in China once trained monkeys to pick tea and many retailers sell what they claim is monkey picked tea. Whether the monkeys are still working or not Supakets is sure that tea lovers around the world will jump at the chance of experiencing dog picked tea.

Scooby relaxes next to the river after a long day on the job