As it empties into Hood Canal, the river washes over our tideflats with clear, clean, spring-fed water.
"A great oyster is an estuary flashing a thumbs-up sign"
- Rowan Jacobsen, "A Geography of Oysters"
Hama Hama Oyster Company is a sixth generation family-run shellfish farm on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. Our beds are located at the mouth of one of the shortest, coldest, and least developed rivers in Washington State, and that purity is reflected in the clean, crisp flavor of the oysters downstream.
We sell our oysters at our farm store and oyster saloon, at pop-ups throughout the Puget Sound and Portland regions, and direct to consumers and chefs across the nation. Our mission is pretty simple: utilize low impact farming methods to grow world-class oysters, have fun, and leave something good for the next generation.
In the 1970’s, Bart Robbins used seed racks to collect wild oyster larvae during spawning season.
When Daniel Miller Robbins purchased property along Hood Canal in the 1890s, he had timber in mind, not oysters. Now, over a hundred years later, Hama Hama is a family-owned and operated sustainable farm, with two businesses: shellfish, and forestry.
We owe our longevity to the incredible richness of the Pacific Northwest. This is simply an amazing place to live and grow food.
Through the years, our farm has shaped our traditions and deepened our relationship to both water and woods. And our story is ultimately one that many families share, one that traces an arc from resource extraction, to resource sustainability, to restorative stewardship.
Nowadays, Adam uses modern growing techniques alongside the old-fashioned natural-catch methods from his grandfather Bart's era.
The Hama Hama Farm is a watershed. Upstream, we work on tree time, stewarding a forest for seven decades before harvesting clear, tight-grained Douglas-fir. We pick mushrooms, raise cattle, and boil fir needles into jelly. Downstream, our schedules are set by the gravitational pull of the sun and moon.
On the beach, we harvest at low tide and bring product to shore at high tide. Above the tideline we produce and nurse oyster seed, wash oysters and clams to sell, and shuck oyster clusters. We don’t feed, fertilize, or doctor anything, and the animals actively clean their environment as they grow. Our farm is an ecosystem, and from forest to flats, from salt water to fresh, from low tide to high, it’s always in transition.
Over the years we’ve branched out to explore different merroirs and added farming methods to produce oysters that are unique in the market and truly distinct from one another.
We grow two varieties of oysters at our home farm: classic, beach-grown Hama Hamas and tumble farmed Blue Pools. We also source oysters from elsewhere in Washington State, procuring super-sweet Sea Cows and Hove Coves from the nutrient rich estuaries of South Puget Sound.
Because seasonality varies with region, we’re also experimenting with some new summer-time varieties grown in the frigid waters of the San Juan Straits.
Today the company is both a community and a business. Our shared mission is to manage our resources for current and future generations. Nearly 30 people work for Hama Hama, many of them for several decades or longer.
We're united by kinship, history, work, and place… and by the love of these darned good oysters. Check out the videos below to learn more about us, our farm, and this place we call home.
