Richard recently heard from a “satisfied customer.”

Sandra Reed, who lives in Tennessee, wrote:

Aloha! My husband and I are visiting here from Tennessee. Tennessee prides itself on its great produce, and with good reason. Nevertheless, I have experienced your cocktail tomatoes and they are unequaled! What a taste! Sooooo good!

She closed by writing:

Y’all come see us some time!

Sandra and her husband were on O‘ahu visiting their son Derek and his wife Lorri, who is a major in the Air Force, when they had Hamakua Springs tomatoes.

It was their fourth visit, and she says they had gotten their sightseeing out of the way the first couple times (like Pearl Harbor, which they found very moving, and Don Ho’s show, which Sandra most recently took in shortly before he passed away).

On their more recent visits, she says, “Derek and Lorri scout out places for us to eat, and we pretty much gorge our way across the Island!”

She says her son brought home some Hamakua Springs cocktail tomatoes from the commissary as a snack food. “Little did he know that I was going to eat three cartons of them while I was there. I ate them straight out of the container with a touch of salt. My mouth waters just thinking about them.”

She says she and her husband always used to have a garden in the summer, but don’t these days. “We try to buy fresh produce when it is available. If the people here ever got a taste of your tomatoes, they would throw rocks at the farmers who sell tomatoes here!”

She and her husband hope to return to Hawai‘i for a family vacation in the next few years. In the meantime, she says she wishes there had been a way to bring home some of Richard’s cocktail tomatoes.

“That was a taste I will savor in my mind for a very long time!” she said.

Thank you, Sandra, for taking the time to be in touch. We loved hearing from you!