Before Obubu:
I had been working for an insurance broker in Dublin for a year and half, although I loved my colleagues (most of them anyway) and was good at my job liaising with clients and Insurance companies, I found the work soul destroying and painfully dull. I had originally intended to only work in Insurance for a few months so I could save some money and go travelling but the time slipped away from me as it so often does in this fast-paced world of 2024. I graduated from university in 2022 with a degree in Horticultural Science and was an intern on organic farm in Tuscany for that summer, so I was dying to get back to farming and learning more about plant cultivation and food systems in other countries.
Why Obubu:
I had applied to be an intern at Obubu in 2021 but unfortunately due to Covid there was no way Japan would let me in. Obubu and the internship programme had been stuck in my head from then onwards and I always said to myself I was going to reapply at some point in the future. Tea is a central part of Irish culture, the average Irish person drinks 6 to 7 cups of tea per day often starting the day with a cup (or “cuppa” as it would be called in Ireland) and ending the day with another. A cuppa is the first thing you’ll be offered when you enter an Irish home and will be drank for any and every reason imaginable. So, tea had always been a constant in my life but admittedly prior to stumbling across the Obubu internship I had never given much thought to how it was cultivated and processed. Ethnobotany, which is the study of the interrelations between humans and plants, is also a big interest of mine so I was keen to learn about the cultural and historical links and importance of the tea plant in Japan and tea’s central part in shaping Japanese culture.
Time at Obubu:
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed every minute of my time at Obubu. I’ve learnt a lot about Japanese tea, tea farming, processing, tea history and Japanese tea culture. The work has been varied and difficult at times but very rewarding. My favourite part of the internship work was definitely the farming, learning about how and why certain things are done by Akky-san out in the field was incredibly interesting. Copious amounts of tea were drank by myself whilst at Obubu (especially matcha) and I will certainly be leaving Obubu with a full blown matcha addiction. The People I have had the pleasure to meet and work alongside at Obubu have all been amazing. Everyone here comes from such varied backgrounds and disciplines and its such a great opportunity to meet such a diverse yet similarly minded group of people.
What’s Next:
I’m lucky enough to be on a working holiday visa in Japan for a year so Japan is stuck with me till June 2025. I am hoping to stay at a Buddhist monastery for a period of time as I’ve an interest in Buddhism and would love the opportunity to stay at a Buddhist monastery for a while. I’m hoping to mainly get work on farms around Japan and see as much of the country as possible. Hopefully one of those farms will be a tea farm as I’d be very interested to do more with tea and tea farming following my time at Obubu.
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