(Instrumental Music) Kalaʻi Miller/Host: Aloha, I’m Kalaʻi Miller and on this episode of Home Is Here we’re at Sumida Farm located in the heart of urban ʻAiea.

More than 50 years ago, the Sumida family fought to keep developers out, leading to Pearlridge Center being built around the farm instead of over it.

Fast track to today, and the farm is still thriving and still in the family, though it hasn’t been without some tough times.

(Instrumental Music) Emi Suzuki/Sumida Farm: I think I always knew that our farm meant something to others.

But it wasn't necessarily because my family was telling me, you know, “This place means something.” But I will say my father was really, really great at helping me understand our history and our place in history.

100 years here is really a small blip in the long timeline of the ʻāina and that we have to respect that.

(Instrumental Music) Sumida Farm got started in 1928 by my great grandparents when they obtained a lease with Kamehameha Schools for about five acres of watercress wetland.

At that time, most of the farms were doing sugar and pineapple.

So we're really happy that, out of all the crops that they chose, it was watercress.

We have these beautiful freshwater springs, the Kalauao Springs, that nourish and feed the land and without them, our watercress really couldn't grow and be as good as it is.

Just that combination of thinking forward about knowing that you're producing a crop that's going to feed families, and nourish them, and utilize our natural resources in the best way.

I'm so grateful that my great grandparents chose that path for not just them, but for our family.

Kyle Suzuki/Sumida Farm: Every generation of the farm has faced one big crisis that they've had to take on and the biggest one for Emi's grandfather was the development of Pearlridge.

And at that time, KS developers had plans to pave over the farm and to make this a part of Pearlridge.

But this small farmer, through relationships and influence and lobbying, and just hard work, was able to protect this ʻāina and protect this farm.

(Instrumental Music) Kyle Suzuki/Sumida Farm:  The big challenge that we took on early on was the transition in the business.

Emi Suzuki/Sumida Farm: So, when Kyle and I decided we want to raise our hand and help step up as the next generation, we were actually really nervous to talk to my family.

Because, truly, we weren't coming from a farming background.

There's a lot of reasons why someone would say we weren't necessarily suited for the job.

We were staying on the farm with our young daughters and planned a dinner with my Aunty Barb.

And I still remember it really clearly.

We kind of staged it all out, because I wanted to carve time to really have a one-on-one conversation.

I didn't want to rush it.

So when we got to the topic of, you know, hey, we are interested in helping to manage the farm.

She was surprised.

I mean, she was really surprised.

And I think her first reaction was concern for us, which I think speaks to her spirit and kindness is she was mostly concerned that, you know, what it would do to our family and how much stress and challenges we would face in taking this step.

So, that's something I always think about when we face a challenge.

Is, is just that idea that, that people were looking out for us and knew what we would face.

Not specifically, but the idea.

So, yeah, I think that she was more concerned.

But once we started vocalizing and working through the concerns, I think that she also saw the relief in it, that it wasn't just on her and that it wouldn't just go away one day, that there was a plan.

And she stood behind us 100%.

Kyle Suzuki/Sumida Farm: When Emi's aunty was diagnosed with cancer, unfortunately, it was a very aggressive form of cancer.

From when she was diagnosed to when she passed away, was only six weeks.

And we had been in discussions with her for a couple years around, at some point in time taking over the business, learning the business with her, and then taking over when she was ready to retire.

And the original timeline was seven to nine years.

And we were really still in year one and a half when she was diagnosed with cancer.

And at that - this was January of 2020 - we flew in because we live in Seattle and came here to help manage the farm helped pick things up.

Then the pandemic hit in March of 2020.

And we had to manage that for about a year and a half, you know, of going back and forth – 14-day, 10-day quarantines.

It definitely was a challenge.

But what we learned was, it was probably the hardest thing we've ever done ever in our lives.

But it was the most fulfilling thing we ever did.

Because in a time where restaurants were closing, and people were having problems getting food, we're able to prioritize accessibility of our watercress, making sure we were getting it out to grocery stores, and if we ever had excess, it went to donations to the Hawaii Food Bank.

And it really brought to life our purpose and the things that we were passionate about that we really cared about.

(Instrumental Music) Emi Suzuki/Sumida Farm: My auntie used to tell us that she believed like having a really positive outlook and knowing that you can get through anything helped us survive all of these different crises over the years.

So I tried to really challenge that in this last couple of years, when we were dealing with a lot of different difficult moments.

And I think that now that we've also proven to ourselves that we can get through some difficult challenges, I think we have that positive outlook, that we'll get through anything.

We’ve just been so fortunate.

Between my Uncle Dave, my parents and the family and the community and so many partners that we work with.

I mean, so many people along the way have helped us and bailed us out when we didn't know where to go, or what to do next.

And so I just, I am so grateful, because I know that some of these people wouldn't necessarily help us if it was just us, but they're helping the farm and the legacy that the farm brings with it.

Kyle Suzuki/Sumida Farm: Having our kids participate and be a part of the farm experience with us has been has been extremely meaningful.

Here on the farm, they're a part of it.

They get to see the challenges, but they get to see how hard were perseverance, planning, teamwork, all of those things come together and the outcome of that.

But one of the things that we've also talked a lot about is just because we are part of the farm doesn't necessarily mean one day we're handing the keys automatically over to the kids.

It needs to be something that in some ways they've earned, and they care about and they want to see forward.

Because when we think about the farm, it's not just a small family business, it's a community farm.

And this farm means so much more to the community than just our own selves.

Emi Suzuki/Sumida Farm: When we look at the future of the farm, we're so excited.

I mean, we're just scratching the surface have some of the ideas that we have on how to bring this farm to the community more.

We promise this is just the beginning of some really awesome things to come.

(Instrumental Music) Kalaʻi Miller/Host: You may have heard of a wine sommelier, somebody who is an expert in wine.

But what about a fish sommelier?

If you think about it, it kind makes sense that a restaurant in Hawaiʻi would be the first to create a position like that, given that we have access to some of the best fish in the world.

And it’s two local boys who get to share their knowledge with hungry diners.

Ryan Houser / Mina’s Fish House Fish Sommelier Everybody's coming from all over the world to Hawaiʻi to try something local.

Saui Matagiese / Mina’s Fish House Fish Sommelier My name is Saui Matagiese.

I am one of Mina's Fish House fish sommeliers.

Ryan Houser / Mina’s Fish House Fish Sommelier My name is Ryan Houser.

I'm a fish sommelier at Mina's Fish House.

A fish sommelier, for me, is basically somebody that explains the taste and texture of fish to people.

In Hawaiʻi, I guess we have a lot of different names for different types of fish, whether it be in Hawaiian, or Japanese, or whatever language you want to use.

But if I could break down the name barrier, talk to you about the texture; maybe try to compare it to something that you've tried before; maybe back home, it makes it a little more approachable for the guests.

So I think it's a great job.

Hi, aloha ladies.

How’s your evening going so far?

Saui Matagiese / Mina’s Fish House Fish Sommelier A lot of people might not know what to expect, as far as taste, textures.

As local fishermen, we kind of go even deeper of how it's caught, where it's caught, kind of diets.

Explain why the taste might be a certain way, and then go over the more of the local, I guess, knowledge of the fish as well.

Like Ryan said, whether it be the names, whether it be the way or preparations that we normally cook them in, and then connect them to the restaurant world.

Michael Arnot / Four Seasons Oʻahu at Ko Olina Executive Chef So yeah, here at Mina's Fish House, we were definitely the first to offer the fish sommelier position in the world and we started with kind of with that line-to-table concept and then the best way to bring that line-to-table concept to fruition by having the fish somm go to the table and speak with the guests and talk about all the different things that come along with these fresh local fish is very unique and very cool experience that we're super stoked to be the first one in the world to do.

Saui Matagiese / Mina’s Fish House Fish Sommelier Not a lot of guests, and even a lot of local people understand how hard it is to bring in these great fish.

We always joke about it being right there.

But it's not as going out there, throwing a line, and bringing it in.

Sometimes fishermen can be out there 12 plus hours, maybe bring home one fish if they get lucky.

Um, cost of gas and just the cost of fishing is pretty, pretty out there here in Hawaiʻi.

And so it gives us a little more of the reins to represent that voice of our local fishermen.

Telling our guests where it's coming from, the hours, and the work that's put in to bring this home to everybody else.

And just getting that message across, we feel probably more of what I enjoy about the job as well.

Ryan Houser / Mina’s Fish House Fish Sommelier We try to break it down to a couple of different categories whether it's shallow water fish, like reef fish, or you have deep reef fish, which is gonna be like our bottom seven.

The onaga, ʻōpakapaka and ehu and stuff like that.

And then we have our pelagic fish, which is going to be our onos or ʻahis or marlins and stuff.

So lots of variety, but still same-same because in other parts of the world, they have tunas, they have swordfish, they have - but they might not know specifically what a onaga is, a longtail red snapper.

They might not know what a ehu is because a lot of that you can only catch in Hawaiʻi.

Some places, you can catch it in the mainland as well, but they have different names for it.

So being able to connect those two together, like, oh, okay, I know exactly what that is, or I've never heard of that before.

Just being able to showcase that and you see, like a little glimmer of light inside of the guests eyes when you're talking to them about that.

And they put the dots together and connect it.

And then, when they finally taste it, and tell us how much they actually like it, that just makes like our entire day.

(Sizzling) Saui Matagiese / Mina’s Fish House Fish Sommelier We do work pretty closely with Chef as far as when he does go over new recipes.

He does try, and you know, give us a taste.

So what do you think?

He’ll ask our opinion.

And you know, we'll speak about, you know, normally, this fish is mostly steamed.

And so these preparations might be a little more geared to it.

And you know, he'll take our opinions into his preparation and, and tweaking it if he has to, or we know, consult with everybody else what they think.

Michael Arnot / Four Seasons Oʻahu at Ko Olina Executive Chef I've lived on the island now for a little over five years.

And, you know, I can study and learn and try and figure out as much about the fish as I can, but having these guys with this experience, you know, I can ask them every little detail about fish and where they live, what they eat, like, how to catch them, how to dive for them, you know, different styles of cooking them, you know, they they really give you that complete and total like, introspective that you can't necessarily get from a book or from learning from, you know, just cooking cooking techniques.

Saui Matagiese / Mina’s Fish House Fish Sommelier I think even with the people like me and Ryan in our fish somm position, letting people know that there's more variety, right?

You don't always got to eat ʻahi.

You don't always have to go after you know all those sought after fish you know.

Get back to eating akule, eating you know all our ʻōpelu when we can get it, all these other varieties of fishes to equal out that.

Alright, so not everybody's always going for ʻahi.

And I think that's the taking ambassadors to really let people know that you have options.

You know, ancient Hawaiians understood the importance of farming fish.

You couldn't fish every single day.

You couldn't fish all season long.

You know there are certain months that are better, certain months, you need to let the ocean replenish itself.

And so we do use Kona kanpachi, which is one of the few fish that we do use that is farmed.

And we do try to preach to our guests the sustainability of why we do use them.

Everyone wants wild caught fish.

But we know the importance of sustainability of that.

Not just for us, but for our children and our children's children as well, to be able to still access these resources that, you know, our grandparents once accessed.

Ryan Houser / Mina’s Fish House Fish Sommelier My jichan, my grandfather on my Japanese side, was a fisherman, and the best way for me to connect with him was basically go fishing and then show him what I caught.

But I could only do that when I go visit Japan, right?

But he was a crazy old man.

He every every fish he wanted to eat raw.

He brought his little sushi sashimi kit to Tennessee where my parents were gonna get married and he caught a fish in the lake and sashimi'd it right there.

And everybody's like, what are you doing?

But I mean, that piqued my interest.

It just made me want to learn about fish be able to connect with my grandfather saying, why did he go fishing all over the world?

What what was so interesting for him?

He made his own lures, his different types of fishing poles, all different types of attributes and I wanted to know what was so interesting.

And I got hooked.

I mean, I've been doing fishing and diving since like eight years old, and it's expensive.

But it's fun.

It's definitely fun.

I mean, and hopefully it's something that can pass on to my kids as well eventually, but I don't want to force them.

Saui Matagiese / Mina’s Fish House Fish Sommelier You know my dad is from American Samoa.

My mom's father on my Hawaiian side was also a fisherman.

And it just goes back generations in our family of just there was always a fisherman in the family.

And so when I was younger, I was always the bucket boy, I used to always say.

My dad would throw net or go fishing, and I always had to drag the bucket.

And so at first, I really didn't like it.

Because I was always sitting, sitting on the sand, dragging the bucket while he fishes.

And then, as I started to get older, like a lot of the local fish that as I moved around, I started like missing, missing like fried akule, or fried menpachi and it just got to a point of like - being a country boy - I cannot be buying my fish.

And so I started fishing for a little more as I got older and so from that's kind of where I got a little more connected and I think even with being connected to the restaurant, just teaching me better ways to cook the fish probably what really kind of solidified probably something I will do forever and hopefully pass to my, you know, my kids one day as well.

A lot of the people I talk to when I do go fish, or even like my friends back home, they're like you're working at Four Seasons?

An oh, yeah.

What do you do?

Well, I talk about fish.

What?

They all give me the look, like what do you mean talk about fish?

Yeah, it's called a fish sommelier and half of them don't even know what a wine sommelier is.

So then I started explaining to him was like, Oh, so you cook the fish and like, no, like, you like passing out food?

Not really.

I just walk up to tables and if they have questions, ask them.

They all look at me confused, like you get paid for that, like, pretty much.

I think it's more amazing that we're both local boys.

I think that's one of my favorite things is, you know, guests come from all around the world.

And the first thing they see when when they're hearing about the fish is two local boys.

And the better part is the you know, our diversity, right?

People think fisherman in Hawaiʻi is supposed to be Hawaiian.

But the truth is, you know, most most of our local fishermen are Asian, you know, the Japanese that came in and a lot of Chinese.

And so you got this big blend of how a fisherman looks in Hawaiʻi.

And I think me and Ryan kind of fit that role perfect, right?

You get to see, you know, the little more Hawaiian side.

And then you have Ryan, who, just a genius when it comes to a lot of his fish.

So I usually lean on him when it comes to be more scientific.

And then, when it comes to more cultural aspects of, you know, how things are used, or like some of the Hawaiian names, you know, he'll come and he'll ask me, you know, do you know how this ever came to be?

And you know, I think this, fortunately, for both of us, yeah, that we can ping off of each other when it comes to that.

Ryan Houser / Mina’s Fish House Fish Sommelier As for the job itself, I've never imagined being able to just talk about fish.

It's something that I enjoy.

I love talking to people, asking how their day is, but I can also just talk story with fish.

A lot of the times they turn out to be fishermen as well.

So we exchange our fishing stories, we exchange our pictures of, keep in contact.

Like I have a lot of guests phone numbers in my book, and whenever they come, it's like, well, I'm gonna be in Fish House in about a week.

I hope to see you there.

Like, yeah, I'll see you then.

And then we exchanged some more fishing stories.

What we did what we didn't.

I mean, never in my life did I think that I could just talk about fish and get paid for that.

It's not even a job to me.

It's just talk story sesh with the guests.

Kalaʻi Miller/Host: One fish you won’t find on the menu – koi.

Known for its beauty, the colorful fish have long been treasured as a living pieces of art.

At Kodama Koi Farm in Mililani, these living jewels are brought in directly from Japan.

It’s a big operation and as we’ll see there’s more to koi than meets the eye.

(Instrumental music) Taro Kodama/Kodama Koi Farm President: Kodama Koi Farm started about 50 years ago, My father started actually this koi business in Japan and then, in 2000, we decided to expand our business to the United States.

We start our business in California first, but we decided to move our location our operation to Hawaiʻi.

First, weather.

Water needs to be warm for us to feed koi, to grow them.

So, you know, Hawaiʻi weather was perfect.

You know, it's warm throughout the year, so we really don't have any lost time of feeding.

That's number one and also the, the volume and quality of water.

Acutally, when we tested when we first came, the quality of the water here is almost the same as what you can get in Japan.

(Instrumental music) So I'm very happy, very fortunate that I - we have this farm in Hawaiʻi.

Right now, we have about eight acres.

We have 30 ponds of 3,000 gallons.

We have more than 50 ponds of 10,000 gallons.

We have several hundreds of the smaller tanks.

A lot of people think that we are breeding koi here, but we do not.

I'm from Japan and I'm here to introduce the beauty of the quality Japanese koi.

So we actually go to Japan, buy koi one by one from the breeders and then we import them from Japan to here and then we raise them.

At this koi farm, we have several sections.

One place is where we take pictures.

And then after we take the pictures, you know, we will print it and we will laminate it, you know, it comes with a barcode IDs so that we can track all the koi individually.

We have a shipping station.

When the order come in, we will bring the koi in, quarantine them for one more week again.

Make sure that they're healthy and then we pack and ship them to UPS.

So when when koi comes in from Japan, and also when we ship the koi from here to our customers, we put those koi in a plastic bag with water, and we put pure oxygen and then seal it and then we put that in a box.

And that's how the breeders ship to me and that’s how we ship to our customers.

We do have a timeframe for the delivery.

Koi, ideally speaking, we want to deliver the koi within 24 hours, because we have only so much oxygen you can put in a plastic bag.

(Instrumental music) A big thing is that it's so hard for the customer to see why this koi is worth $400 when for this koi is worth $4,000.

You know we need to kind of educate them.

Education is a really a big part of it.

So there are three main varieties we call them gosanke.

Kohaku is red and white koi.

Sanke have red and black on the white body.

And Showa - they are black base.

They have black body but they have white and red on the black body.

Kohaku, sanke, showa, they are the three most popular varieties, but we have more than a hundred different varieties in koi so you have so many to enjoy.

When we look at the koi's beauty, we look at the body conformation, quality and pattern in that order.

Look at the body confirmation, look at the skin quality, and then look at the pattern.

Hobbyists, probably, look at the pattern first, but for the professional like us we look at the body first because that's the foundation of the koi.

If the body is not really strong, no matter how good the pattern is, eventually then the beauty is going to fall apart.

So, the body comes first.

So this koi is called showa variety, and showa has three colors, red, black, and white.

This is female, three years old and very beautiful.

And what makes this koi very special is number one, the bloodline, you know, this koi came from a breeder called Dainichi Koi Farm, he's one of the biggest koi breeders he has produced so many grand champions, so the bloodline is good.

As I said, body, quality and pattern.

These are the three important factors for the beauty and if you look at this koi, you can see how big this koi is.

You can see the head is wide, the shoulder is big, and all the way to the tail too the meat is all the way in.

So it's like almost like big tree trunk.

So this is definitely one of the ideal body confirmations.

And then, the quality.

Quality is kind of hard to explain, but if you just look at the black being jet black, and if you look at - you can see this sides, a little bit gray areas, that's okay because koi is a growing beauty.

The black is underneath, you'll start filling in over the time.

This is still kind of unfinished piece of art.

The size actually is the value.

You can get this quality maybe one out of like thousands, probably millions because not many koi can grow this big maintaining the beauty of it.

It's so hard to see everything in one body so that's why this koi is one of the most valuable.

Right now, I retail it for $10,000.

The most expensive one I have ever sold was $75,000 and of course my father has sold the koi for $200,000, $150,000.

You know we call Japanese koi living jewels.

So it's definitely a piece of art.

And you know, if you consider a pond like a canvas, and you have so many different colors on that water canvas, that's the beauty of it.

You know, some people enjoy the koi by itself.

Some customers enjoy the whole pond as a whole, you know, big picture of it.

In Japan, we call them also a symbol of peace.

You know, even though they have different colors, different varieties, they never fight.

I wish, you know, our world is like koi, you know, we all have different colors, different faces, different countries, coming from different breeders, but they never fight.

We wish we don’t have to fight like koi.

Koi is really fun hobby.

They’re pets and also beautiful art.

So that really makes your life colorful.

So if you already have started the hobby, congratulations.

If you have not, please try.

(Instrumental music) Kalaʻi Miller/Host: Mahalo for joining us.

Please visit PBSHawaii.org or the PBS Hawaiʻi YouTube for more from this episode.

For Home is Here, I’m Kalaʻi Miller, a hui hou.

Taro Kodama: I think koi are very intelligent.

I think they can recognize, identify their owners.

You know, the owners are always the one who feed, so they know who's, who is the one who feeds and they can, I guess, they can even tell the difference by the footstep as well.

Emi Suzuki: Everything that the farm represents is what we're passionate about.

It's feeding people, nourishing people, it's education, there's opportunities for creativity, we're able to, you know, tangibly say that I feel like we're making this world and this community a little bit better.

Saui & Ryan: So if I'm going to the store, might be a local grocery store or even Costco, normally what I always look out for is if there's like mahimahi.

Mahimahi is, I always say, is a safe fish.

I just go salt, pepper, either steam it or if not just pan fry it.

But that, that and just a bowl of rice and and I'm good.

Shoyu on the side.

Yeah.

For me, the first thing I look for is opah.

I'm a very big opah fanatic.

I love opah.

I'm like a little opah nerd, but I love looking for fattier opah, close to the belly content.