Here's a factoid of which you are probably unaware: Hawai'i is the only state in the U.S. union that can be called a tea-processing state.

Tea is grown elsewhere in the country, but most tea farmers send their picked harvest to processing factories. Here, the cluster of small farmers that make up the Hawaii Tea Society take their own teas from field to retail package.

This, according to Eva Lee of the Society, a founding member, former president and, with her husband, Chiu Leong, a tea grower in Volcano.

Tea-growing here is very much in its infancy, built on research into its potential as an agricultural crop performed by the USDA's Pacific Basin Agriculture Research Center and also by the University of Hawai'i's College of Tropical Agriculture — particularly on its Hilo campus, and in the tea garden and tea-processing facility at Mealani Experimental Farm in Waimea.

The six-year-old Hawaii Tea Society has about 100 members, including farmers and tea enthusiasts. The growers, and the researchers and nursery owners who have been working with them, have focused primarily on the how-tos of propagation, cultivation and processing, experimenting and learning — often the hard way.

The goal, Lee wrote in an article for the Society newsletter, is to move Hawai'i-grown tea beyond a novelty to a recognized agricultural product with a solid reputation for quality.

So far, tea-growing here is centered on Hawai'i island, in Volcano, Waimea and on the Hamakua Coast.

The organization is hosting a Tea Tasting Fundamental series; see www.hawaiiteasociety.org for a schedule and how to join.