Rice Mill Taro Farm Tour - HANALEI

Wow, making poi is a lot of work! We learned how to pound poi a very manual 2 hour process! We saw a few fields and saw some endangered birds and we learned a LOT about farming a taro field. Afterwards we had some taro chips with taro hummus and a taro dessert that takes 16 hours to make.

We were anticipating this tour for many reasons. On the edge of a wildlife sanctuary with endangered birds. A working family farm. A unique ecosystem. A plant we knew little about. What a disappointment. Lindsey, the tour guide, might be the most narcissistic person I 've ever encountered. And I live in the era of Trump. She 's undoubtedly the most narcissistic tour guide I 've ever had. Literally two thirds of her sentences started with I. She literally, per her account saved the farm during the April 2018 flood by single handedly moving all the farm equipment then running back to move more tractors , is the only working mother on earth none of the rest of us has raised kids and held responsible jobs and struggled to complete a dissertation several chapters of her thesis werel lost, although there is cloud storage and has been for a decade . The farm is cool and learning about taro is interesting. The flood was devastating I get that I did post Katrina recovery . The challenge of apple snails is real. The work involved in running a family farm, and a family business, are both real. But the constant complaining about how hard her life is, how hard she works I was up at 4 am to do yoga , I was at the chiropractor planting is so hard on my back , how heroic she was in the flood the aforementioned rescue of tractors , how tragic is her life literally 20 minutes on the flooding of the house it was too much. Way too much. This family employs a bunch of farm hands who work every day in the heat and mud of a taro farm. I suspect some of them are single parents, too! There was no mention of them. There are people who staff their food trucks in the north and south of the island and I 'm sure many of them are parents with young kids. They 're probably drawing minimum wage. No mention of them. Yes, family farming is a hard path. Many of us moved to other careers when we watched family members ' working long, hard hours on farms. Parenting young kids is hard too. Far more of us have done that many as single parents. We did this tour to learn and to enjoy. We learned a little. We enjoyed a lot less. Lindsey if you read this get over your tough life. Be thankful for your myriad blessings and respect the people who come to tour your farm. We didn 't come there to throw a pity party for you. Gratitude will set you free.

This tour was educating and delicious! The history of your family's rice and taro farm was so interesting with both sorrow and hope. We enjoyed the lesson in taro pounding but enjoyed the taro hummus even more. We wish you good fortune in the future with both your farm and your food truck. Ending the tour with delicious food was really special.

Lindsey has so much passion, and it really shows through her tours. Since going on this tour, I mainly buy Hanalei taro instead of other brands. I commend her never giving up with all the flash flooding they go through. Plus, I really love how much she gives back to the community.

We paid $70 each to watch a video that we couldn't see because we were outside. Then we were taken to a taro field where we all sat and listened to a very long lecture by a lovely lady. Lastly we had to do a scavenger hunt but did feel that was rather childish. The only upside was a lovely lunch on our return. You could have paid approximately $10 and had that lunch