Grow Aloha: Māmaki

For the staff at Limahuli, gathering māmaki for tea is just as much about caring for the plant and for ʻāina as it is about harvesting.

“It’s important, first and foremost, because you’ve got to maintain the health of the plant while you’re harvesting,” said Ziko. “So most people, if they’re growing māmaki themselves or if they have a patch that they go to, they just pick a couple of leaves. That’s the appropriate practice. You take a few leaves, mainly the oldest leaves from the plants that are the most mature and can handle that stress. Because if you take too much or you start cutting off branches, you open up the plant to disease, you weaken it so that if a pathogen came along or some other disturbance occurred, the plant’s less likely to survive. So when we harvest, we only take what we need. This leaves more for other people and for the plant itself.”

While māmaki is well-known for its medicinal uses and delicious tea, it also plays a crucial role in ecosystem restoration.

“There’s a lot that makes māmaki unique beyond its use as a medicinal plant and as you know, a really tasty beverage,” said Ziko. “It’s really ecologically important, especially for us here at Limahuli. It’s one of the predominant native plants that shows up in our seed bank. So when we do restoration work, we clear away invasives, māmaki is one of the first and most abundant native plants to pop up on its own. So we’re really fortunate that the majority of the time māmaki is working with us to establish a new native canopy that we can plant our slower growing species and our ground covers and our ferns underneath, and kind of build up the next generation of plants that succeed māmaki.”

“We find in the wild māmaki grows often or most abundantly along stream sides where you get that regular disturbance. So it does well in disturbed areas. And that’s something that’s also really, really important and really unique because so many native plants struggle with disturbance—whether it be from feral pigs and goats to landslides, climate change or invasive species introductions. Māmaki is one of those plants that kind of just shrugs it off and thrives in those challenging situations that other plants struggle with.”

Stepping into the native agroforest is truly an inspiring experience. This area, once known as the Invasive Forest Walk, was overtaken by non-native species. But in 2022, plans were set in motion to transform it into a thriving agroforest, and invasive plants were systematically cleared. Today, the agroforest is home to a variety of flourishing plants–among them, numerous māmaki sway gently in the wind, their silvery undersides catching the light as the breeze stirs their leaves. This site is dedicated to olonā, an important endemic Hawaiian plant known for its strength and versatility, often regarded as one of the strongest plant fibers in the world. Māmaki plays a vital role in supporting olonā outplanting efforts in the agroforest. And, of course, there’s plenty of māmaki here to harvest for tea.

“When harvesting māmaki leaves, it’s best to choose the oldest leaves,” said Ziko. “Ideally, they’re not yellow yet but are just starting to turn. It’s okay if they’re a little ugly because they still have all the same goodies as long as they haven’t gone brown and they don’t have splotches or pest damage.”

So what’s a good ratio of leaves to water?

“It depends on how strong you want it,” said Ziko. “But generally, half a cup of leaves makes about two servings of tea. So if you were to get all the leaves that you’ve collected and push them into a measuring cup and smash that down, that’s about two servings of māmaki. Māmaki is a really nice tea to make because you don’t have to worry about over steeping it. The worst thing you can do is under steep it. We just put the leaves in the pot, turn the heat up all the way and then just boil it until it gets dark enough. Sometimes if we’re going for a really dark brew or making concentrate, then we’ll boil it until it reduces down. We’ll add more water and continue to boil it until we get all those goods out. And then we’ll steep it overnight, which is what we’ll do tonight.”

Using dry māmaki leaves are another alternative, but according to Ziko, fresh is best.

“Fresh is going to be a stronger flavor and a deeper color and you don’t have to steep it for as long to get the same potency,” he adds. “The main reason why we do fresh is because we can. I would recommend anybody do fresh if they can. And actually, if I didn’t work here and I could only get māmaki every once in a while, I would collect, brew fresh and then freeze the concentrate. The best reason to dry the leaves is if you need to transport it, store it for a long time and you don’t have space in your freezer, or if you’re giving it as a gift, because then the person who receives it doesn’t have to make it right away.”

Walking through the agroforest with Ziko and Keona, it’s crazy to think that māmaki wasn’t here just two years ago. Now, the māmaki is thriving and abundant in this space. We asked Ziko if they expected māmaki to emerge in such abundance.

“No, it was not part of the plan,” he laughs. “We planted some knowing that it was something that we really wanted to see in the olonā site, because it grows so frequently with olonā in the wild. It also makes such a good habitat plant, it creates so much habitat for other things. But out of all the māmaki that we planted, I think only one is still alive in here. The rest are all volunteers from our seed bank.”

Seeing the māmaki flourishing in the agroforest, it’s clear that this plant thrives when surrounded by the right companions. We asked Ziko if there are any plants that would make natural friends with māmaki in a garden setting.

“As is the case with any shrub or tree, having ground covers that help retain moisture is really good. Māmaki are not super tolerant to drying out. It can sometimes recover from it, but most people who grow māmaki or who have received māmaki notice that if they miss watering for a couple of days and the soil dries out, it will totally wilt. The best thing to do is get it in the ground with companion plantings. And if you can set up irrigation, that’ll be ideal. Once they’re established, they do really well.”

“If you’re in a dry area, something like carex wahuensis (a native sedge) would work well. Also koʻokoʻolau would be an excellent partner plant because both can be used to make a tea. Koʻokoʻolau and māmaki are both relatively short lived, so as you grow it, you should collect fruit and seed and start to grow your own. But if you have enough of them in a concentrated area over a long enough time, you’ll start to have natural regeneration. You’ll get more māmaki popping up, you’ll get koʻokoʻolau popping up, especially if you treat for things like slugs to prevent them from eating the seedlings. It really comes down to keeping the area moist and pest free.”

When it comes to harvesting māmaki for tea, it’s important to consider the plant’s growth stages.

“So one thing to know about māmaki is that when it’s young, the leaves will be larger and as it gets older, the leaves get smaller,” said Ziko. “Many people are tempted to take those big leaves because you get the biggest bang for your buck in terms of making tea. That’s not entirely a wrong instinct, but just be careful that you don’t take so many leaves that the plant doesn’t get to reach maturity. You want to make sure that it gets really well established before you start taking those leaves because it needs them to make the energy that it requires to grow.”

As we gather the māmaki leaves, it’s easy to imagine a refreshing cup of māmaki iced tea. But for those who haven’t tried it, what does māmaki tea actually taste like?

“That’s a good question. I think that a really well brewed batch of māmaki tea should have a kind of milky taste. The texture is really creamy and silky and it kind of has a rich sweetness, kind of like an earthy sweetness. Nutty is a good way of describing it. You can tell there’s all kinds of crazy good stuff in there. And it’s a really rich burgundy color. It makes a beautiful dye as well.”

While preparing the māmaki for tea, we couldn’t help but think about how it supports not just people, but the ʻāina as well. We asked Ziko about his hopes for the future of māmaki.

“My hopes for the future of māmaki is that it continues to be grown and enjoyed not just as a medicinal plant, but as itself, as a plant in the Hawaiian ecosystem. It happens often enough where people will ask, ‘what is this plant good for?’ or ‘what was this plant used for?’ before they consider the greater scale of what it is that we’re trying to do as ecologists and conservationists and aloha ʻāina. It doesn’t have to have a function for humans in order to be valuable. Māmaki just so happens to have a function that people really enjoy. In that way it’s also important because it brings people into the conversation about native plants. It brings people into the conversation about native ecosystems. Because it’s so charismatic, it makes a delicious tea, the berries are tasty, it’s a host for one of our two native butterfly species, so at so many levels, it’s this really charming, captivating plant. I hope that it continues to have that role. But I hope that people will start to have a broader appreciation for it as something that’s only found here. I hope everybody gets the chance, in one way or another, to see the breeze lift the leaves of a māmaki and you see that silvery underside. It’s a gorgeous plant.”

Interviews were edited for clarity and length. Artwork by Carly Lake.