Hawaii Tea Haul! Oolong Owl's Cruise to Hawaii part 1

I’ve recently got back from my Princess Cruise to Hawaii! Yay for last minute cruise sales!

Anyways, my cruise was interesting and the itinerary changed. The plan was – start in Los Angeles, sail for 4 days, then stop in Maui, Hilo, Honolulu and Nawiliwili. A couple days in our ship had to change course, as instructed by the Coast Guard, to assist in a search mission. The Grand Princess, another ship heading to Hawaii, had a crew member go overboard. After a day and a half circling around the Pacific Ocean, we were released (with no luck finding the poor guy) to resume to Hawaii. With that said, we never made it to Maui as we were late, sailed directly to next stop, Hilo.

We also got to Hilo late, which even more limited my free time to look for tea. I was hellbent on hitting a tea shop while I’m in Hawaii and google showed me a cute tea shop in Hilo.

Sadly, I had bad luck.

Wahh closed! I guess I should of called, but I only had a few hours to wander around Hilo before my tour. Sorry Teaching Tea, you lost out on an Oolong Owl raid.

I felt a little desperate after not being able to hit that tea shoo. I found no loose leaf tea in Hilo, my only tea shop I had time to visit was closed. With lots of tours booked (snorkeling, crawling around lava caves, glass bottom boats), I didn’t get much more time to search for other tea shops. My tour of Angel Falls provided snacks – yum green tea in a can! Actually pretty tasty and refreshing.

When I got to Honolulu I had some better luck finding tea. Hilo Hattie was a stop on every shuttle bus from the cruise ship. Of course, they sold lots of Kona coffee but no loose leaf teas. I found this Hawaiian Islands Tea Company brand everywhere – grocery stores and Hilo Hattie. There was lots of fun Hawaiian flavors like macadamia nut and pineapple! I hope its good tea.

The only non Hawaiian Island Tea Company tea I found at Hilo Hattie was a chai mix. Mango Spiced Chai Tea? Interesting. There was a Coconut flavor as well, but this tea was on the pricey side so I only got one.

I found an interesting spice shop in Ala Moana Center, Honolulu. Herbal Pomelo tea? Sweet!

The biggest score was finding Lupicia, also in Ala Moana Center. Massive store! (I’ll do a full review in a future blog post) I kinda went overboard and got 2 gift sets that included all their exclusive Hawaii teas.

… and a tea that’s been on my bucket list also sneaked into my basket.

Lupicia was also super sweet in throwing in some freebies. Hmm wait a minute… there’s no camels in Hawaii…

I’m sad I never did find some oolong grown in Hawaii, but I did enjoy vacationing in Hawaii. Honolulu in particular I LOVE! The shopping! So much to do! So much great asian food (shoulda seen me flailing outside a mochi sweets shop in the mall). I’ve been bugging my husband that we need to move to Honolulu! Rest assured, I will be back to Honolulu (and Maui, since I never made it there) for hopefully a longer stay.

As a side note, since our ship never made it to Maui we went to Kona instead. Finding tea in Kona.. yeah… that was a mission of failure. LOTS OF KONA COFFEE. Nothing much in tea selection. I wasn’t able to look for tea in Nawiliwili as I was busy snorkeling.. well more like hugging a surf board in fear.

Other than tea? MACADAMIA NUT HAUL! FYI, I passed on the Spam flavored Macadamia nuts. They tasted interesting, but this tea owl has a sweet tooth!