My beautiful people!
I am sitting at the desk in the office, looking out to the factory and the tea fields behind it. It is slowly getting warmer and the blooming sakura trees are proof we bid winter our farewells. As I am deciding on about what to tell you about my time here and what to keep in my journal, my co interns are preparing for a tea tour, behind me a meeting is taking place and next to me Katrina is doing her scheduling magic. As you know, many things happen here.
Tea has been like a friend to me for many years now, even though the beginnings of this companionship were a little rocky. Unlike Akky-san, I did not immediately fall in love with tea, it was more of a slow burn romance. But those usually are the most powerful, I guess.
BEFORE OBUBU (tldr. thought caffeine addiction would make me cool, found out there is infinite joy hidden in a cup of tea)
I was around 13 or 14 years old and entering the more »embarassing« phases of life. I was quite insecure, as girls are sadly conditioned to be at that age and I was ready to try anything to feel better and look prettier. Well, anything except exercise. So I looked for a remedy for my teenage insecurities and found it on Youtube.
»Drink green tea,« they said. »It tastes great, it gives you energy, it makes you skinny,« they claimed. Desperate, I believed them. So on one evening I decided to take matters into my own hands. I went through a cupboard full of tea bags at home and at the bottom I found a few bags of green tea going rogue. What tea really was, I had no idea. What plant it was made from, zero clue. So, of course, I brewed the tea in the worst way possible. I boiled some water and put the tea bag in to steep immediately. Left it there for more than 15 minutes. Tried a little sip and the bitterness punched the back of my throat. »But I have to drink this! Tea is the only things that can save me!« Naive, with an almost stupid urgency, I needed to find a way to make it taste good. Into that horrific brew I then added the juice of half a lemon and by the time I had finished making this concoction, the tea was already cold and the bag slimy (of course I did not take it out). I was determined, so I tried it again. The lemon had somehow made it worse. Tried another sip. Did not like it. But beauty is pain, so I perservered. I drank the whole cup and when I went to sleep that night, the caffeine gave me a lot of time to think about what is it about this tea that makes it so popular. I wondered why people love it so much if it tastes that bad.
After a few days, I tried again. Steeped it for ten minutes, added lemon and honey. Not great. After a few failed attempts I had enough. I needed to learn more because »ain’t no way people actually like this stuff«. So I looked it up and learned that steeping green tea at boiling temperature for a very long time will, indeed, make it taste like swamp water.
With this new information I tried once more, I still wasn’t convinced. But by then, I had already drunk all of my family’s green tea supply (which was 10 bags at the maximum, we were more of a herbal infusion household), so I took a little break from it. I come from a small town in Slovenia and it was hard to get green tea there, let alone a good one. Still is.
Some years went by and I moved to Ljubljana to go to high school. I wanted to be cool and mysterious, as one does, but the idea of smoking or drinking didn’t really appeal to me. »All the cool kids have some kind of addiction,« I thought. My solution to this was caffeine. Genious, I know. Initially I considered coffee, but it made me too hyper and jittery and the taste was not my favourite. Yet again, tea was the solution to another foolish problem. Strongly decided on my path towards “healthy addiction”, I made a point of drinking copious amounts of green and black tea throughout the schooldays. I even kept a secret stash of tea bags in my locker. We had a hot water machine at school, so these really were tho good ol’ days. And my plan did work, sort of. I did get the caffeine addiction headaches, I’m just not sure they made me cool.
The more I was drinking, the more I got used to the taste and it became my comfort drink and also kind of my “thing”. So I wanted to know more. This was the first time I actually read more about the history and the process behind the leaves. The more I knew, the more I wanted to know. I became curious and one day, I visited a tea shop in the city center. I fell in love. It was the first time I saw so much loose leaf tea, so much variety and met people who cared about some dried leaves as much as I did.
From that point on, tea wasn’t just a hack to get skinny (which is never a good reason to do anything) or a way to sneak up the social ladder. Turns out you’re only cool if seen with a cigarette on school premises, and not a cute little cup.
After that, tea became my companion and solace, my joy and a warm embrace in tough times. And there’s a whole lotta those when you’re sixteen and the world crumbles at the smallest inconveniences. And it was a nice kick of energy before parties. Always pregame with some green tea, trust me.
Then, in my last months of high school, right before COVID hit us like a ton of bricks, I learned about pu erh and gong fu cha. I made notes on how you must first wash the teaware, then wake up the leaves, infuse the tea multiple times,.. It was like magic. Of course my teaware ensemble consisted of a soup plate, a two coffee mugs and an empty glass of baby food. But where there is a will, there is a way.
I kept coming back to tea all throughout my university years and I even worked in the tea shop I loved so much! The final year of university demanded a lot of time, and besides the teashop I was working another job, so I had to take a little break from it. But it was during that time, that I found out about Obubu. Whatever I did, I was always keeping an eye out for the internship adventures and every once in a while, I would read the internship page, hoping one day the stars will align for me to come to Wazuka. In my mind, this was always more something that other people get the chance to do, not me. I never seriously thought about applying, let alone getting accepted. But life goes on, stuff happens, I got my degree in languages and decided on a gap year to figure things out. “Whatever, it’s not like I’ll get in,” I thought as I submitted the application. Turns out, the stars did align perfectly and in the last days of January, I was flying halfway across the world to take care of tea plants for three months and experience just how much work and care goes into making a cup of tea. It felt like the most appropriate thing to do. I mean, I do drink this stuff every day.
DURING OBUBU
I arrived to Obubu in the end of January. I was a winter intern. Now, I don’t particularly like winter, I definitely do not like the cold and I was most certainly not prepared for how much heat would escape the wooden and paper walls of our house. And if you’re wondering why I chose to come here during winter, I can share my mastermind plan. I was not aware of how much snow there is in Japan. I foolishly believed it will be chilly, at worst, since Japan is much closer to the equator than Slovenia. Now, did I fact check this at any point? Of course not. I went into this thinking it will be cold for about a month and for the rest of the time we’ll have t-shirt weather. And I mean, thinking about it now that spring is in full swing, if I had to be cold, I’m glad I was cold in Japan, looking out onto the snowy tea fields than at home, where snow turns into that horrible brown sludge before I can even have my morning cup of tea. Maybe you can tell I feel really strongly about this.
I am not quite sure what I was expecting coming here. Was this really necessary, I mean, this wasn’t something I studied for, the little money I had saved up will have been spent by the end and what if I don’t know enough, what if I’m not strong enough for farming, what if, what if, what if,.. Safe to say it was a long flight. But then I landed, slept, took a train out of Osaka and finally, I arrived at Kamo station. It was so cold and windy and I was tired and excited and felt brave and confused all at the same time. The bus was supposed to depart in 45 minutes and I just sat down on the pavement next to it, because the only thing to do was go to the Lawson across the street and I had already done that 10 minutes ago. Then, the bus driver opened the door and told me to come in and stay warm. He took my suitcase and carried it inside. Then we started talking a little bit, his english a little bit broken and my japanese non-existant. He then went back to the driver’s seat and came back with a cup, a thermos and a bag of snacks. All of my worries and doubts were gone in that moment. With one sip of hojicha I knew I came to the right place. He waved goodbye after dropping me off at the station in Wazuka. Even the sun came out a little bit! Honestly, it was almost a little too cute. But if that was a little too cute then I have no idea how to describe everything that happened after.
Since that moment, life at Obubu has been nothing short of wonderful. With Joshua, my amazing co-intern, we hit it off right away and I am so happy it was just the two of us for a while. As a team we worked wonderfully, always learning from one another. I told him everything is only as complicated as you make it and he told me to get a grip and organize my e-mails. Synergy. L-theanine and caffeine, if you will.
I had no idea you could pack so much activities and happening into only three months, but we truly did do so many things!
The one thing we did the most were tea tours. I liked doing them, meeting so many different people and talking with them about tea and just chatting about life was always such a wonderful way to spend the day.
With Joshua, we also tried our hands at construction and built a wall to make two extra rooms for interns in Obubu house! We were a little bit confused at the start but I think we did a great job and had so much fun!
My favourite activity on the clock was going out to the fields and taking care of the plants. Because we came here during winter we didn’t get to do much harvesting, but we did do a bunch of trimming. Our first farming trip was actually at a new abandoned tea field! It felt so crazy almost swimming in the overgrown bushes and battling with the branches on the hill. It was an extreme initiation, but every farming trip since that one felt like a breeze.
I felt so happy farming during the off season, because it felt like something that was long overdue. Drinking tea for so many years, I felt like I needed to give back to the tea plants, in a way. Take care of them like they have been taking care of me for such a long time. Can’t a girl be a little sentimental?!
I also want to say that everything you hear about farming with Akky-san is absolutely true. It truly feels like being in the fields with a tea fairy. As soon as the trimming machine turns on, he almost becomes one with the tea bushes and it feels like any cut that goes too deep hurts him as well.
Being surrounded by the morning mist and seeing how the leaves glisten in the sun ? Incredible!Trimming the tea bushes so delicately it feels almost like petting a cat? Showstopping! Stopping for a little break to enjoy tea and the scenery surrounding us? Brilliant!
The coolest thing, however, happened when I was in the process of making my personal project. I made a guide on how to use and take care of your wooden tea utensils. To learn more hands on, a local chashaku maker and tea farmer came to Obubu and we spend one rainy evening together whittling. Witnesses can attest I did lose my mind, blacked out and cried from joy. It really was that cool!
And as if that wasn’t already cool enough, we also learned how to make mochi, wagashi, pottery and we hand rolled some tea!
Of course, the whole magic of Obubu is the people that you meet here. I feel incredibly lucky to have made so many good friends, with whom I now share so many wonderful experiences. When we came to Obubu with Joshua, we were the only interns, so the AM team took us under their wing. Alix, Mac, Katrina and Marcello showed us the ways of life here and took us to Kasagi to eat nabe, to sushi and fun grocery stores,.. From laughing under kotatsu to dancing like crazy in the Sencha factory after pizza night, every moment was filled with joy. And Lady Gaga.
After welcoming the new AM team and another batch of interns, the pace of life sped up and there was even more fun happening every day. Truly, every single person I have met here has taught me something new, made me see the world in a different light.
We went on so many trips and I tried so much good food, I saw so many beautiful places, pet deer in Nara, played childhood games in Osaka, went to an onsen in Miyama and met some wonderful ladies, fell in love with capitalism and organised crime in Kobe,..
The only possible conclusion is that having good friends, good tea and good food is what this whole life thing is about!
I feel with my little heart…overwhelming joy! <3
AFTER OBUBU
Now a couple of days have passed since I started writing this. It’s a wonderfully warm and humid Saturday afternoon and we’re in the tearoom with Josh, finishing up our graduation work. I’m a little tired, because we were celebrating Miwako’s birthday yesterday and then stayed up dancing, walking and talking.
I truly do not have any wish to leave just yet, but all good things do eventually come to an end and that’s part of the beauty of it all. There are great things coming, I am sure.
When I come back home, I’ll still have a couple of months of my gap year left, so I will have time to do a whole bunch of things. In these three months I have gotten so many ideas and things I want to do and as sad as I am to leave Wazuka, I’m excited to see what the next chapter has in store for me. I don’t really know what I will do, I just know that I’ll be doing it with a cup of tea in my hands.
Thank you to everyone for dancing with me and making these three months absolutely magical.
It was THE BEST!
With so much love,
Eva
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