Hii!! My name is Monica, and thank you for taking the time to look at my intern page. :-)
★ If you’re an Obubu colleague reading this, hello! I hope you are well, happy, and healthy. Look, my intern page made it! We should chat if we haven’t in a while. And if you’re one of my ancestors, what’s up!
★ If you’re reading this and thinking about applying to the intern program, I hope my story provides you a bit of clarity, and please feel free to reach out to me anytime.
★ If you simply love to keep up with the growing stories from Obubu interns and stumbled upon my page, I’m extremely flattered, and I hope you enjoy it!
☆IG: @mca.li
A brief introduction about me is that I’m from the USA, and more specifically Seattle, Washington State. Before coming to Obubu, I was wrapping up my 3rd year of university at the University of Washington. I’m studying informatics/information sciences. And while looking through what seemed like endless summer internship applications, I found Obubu’s job posting on one fateful night via an Instagram ad. And though I was very skeptical at first, I took a shot in the dark because, well, why not, and – spoilers – it was probably one of the best decisions I’ve made. Why Obubu? i) I was looking for an opportunity to showcase my skills in a community-focused environment ii) I wanted to be outside and away from my computer iii) I love tea!
Tea has always been a part of my life. I grew up drinking it regularly at home, on the go, and while sharing moments with family and friends. To me, tea is everywhere and can be associated with different environments and memories. For example, hot pu’erhs or chrysanthemum when eating with family, or iced milk teas and matcha lattes when hanging out with friends or studying. One of my earliest memories with Japanese tea, actually, was drinking the bulk Kirkland-brand Itoen green tea bags my mom would buy from Costco growing up. It was my standard Japanese green tea, and its taste is what I attributed to Japanese green tea for the longest time.
By the time I applied to be an intern at Obubu, my experience was grounded in making cakes and specialty tea drinks. Tea was always at the center of my work, which is why I loved tea for its flexibility and variety of types, aromas, and flavors. But I had only been a casual tea enjoyer and experimenter; I knew there was still so much to learn.
“If you had to pick one memory from Obubu to keep with you forever, which one would you choose?” Amber asked Chong Jun, David, Liszt, and me during a car ride in 99 after work. As we pondered in silence for a few seconds, I had many memories come to mind. I couldn’t pick one at that moment, and still can’t. So instead, let me tell you about a few!
For me, coming to Obubu meant travelling to Japan for the first time, and I wouldn’t have wanted to experience it any other way. Besides the fact that nothing could have prepared me for the humidity of Japan’s summer – it’s not for the weak if you come from a colder place. I learned that summer at Obubu means the AC is blasting as soon as you enter a room, cold brewed tea on repeat, bugs, reptiles, frogs, and cicadas so loud they become background noise to everything.
Did you know that cicadas group together to make a wall of noise to confuse predators? It’s called chorusing, and I learned about it from David during a break from weeding next to the Inari shrine. While taking shelter from the sun beneath the old looming trees, watching the oddly large ants explore the chabako, and taking in every breeze we could catch. Every pause in our conversation just filled itself with the sound of cicadas.
Every summer farming day came with its own little survival kit; electrolytes, fan jackets, UV sleeves, and neck gaiters became as essential to me as any other farming tool. Why neck gaiters? For one, they protect your neck from the hot ball in the sky. Secondly, you won’t accidentally inhale a flying insect! I won’t ever forget the day it happened to me during a farming shift with Trey and Madeline: “That’s how you know you’re a true farmer.” Trey says to me while I’m blowing my nose in horror – thank you Trey.
Not to forget rain gear, as summer means typhoon season in Japan. Humid rain was a strange thing to experience for the first time, especially in the midst of slipping and tripping throughout the tea fields. Nonetheless, farming was my favorite activity to do through the sunshine and the rain. From embracing the cool morning breeze in the early kei tora rides out to the field, to then feeling the same breeze differently after a long shift. To lugging endless harvested tea bags into the shade during summer harvest weeks for sencha and tencha. And of course, the chabako breaks between farming were some of my favorite memories of sharing tea with others.
The other – more prominent side of summer farming is weeding. With summer came much more weeding than tea processing. I definitely weeded the entirety of Inari at least once, if not more, as well as around the main Obubu facilities. I will never forget the day Garance took me on a journey to weed three different fields in one afternoon! It was honestly so much fun, and very informative to evaluate the state of different tea fields all within the same day.
Watching the tea bushes change over the internship time, the smell of freshly harvested leaves or wet soil, feeling the soft tea leaves and fun critters, listening to the various bird songs or nearby running water source, and of course – tasting the fruits of our labor by drinking tea every day! This was what I truly loved about farming. It was the time to immerse yourself in the luscious valley of Wazuka using all of your senses. I found the experience of farming extremely helpful to understanding the conditions that come with creating quality tea, especially if you intend to teach others about tea.
Which is where tea tours come in. To me, this was the chance to practice taking the things I’d learn in the field and hand them to others. Obubu offers many different tours with one main goal of encouraging Japanese tea education to people all over the world. Which is so cool! I cherished this part of the internship because it aligns with one of my core values in all of the work I do, which is to foster an environment where I can keep learning while teaching others at the same time.
Every tour started the same way: set up in the morning to ensure everything ran smoothly. Once guests arrived, my favorite part was always the beginning: hearing where people had traveled from and what their relationship to tea already was. As an intern, we do a majority of the presentation while an AM or staff brew tea and hosted the session.
It didn’t take long to see how much love and care went into every one of our tours. From the abundance of tea information to the levels of intention behind every role to create the best possible experience for our guests. Coming from a food service industry background, it was a kind of intention I’d never considered or practiced before. Running tour also meant coordinating across the tea room, field, factory, and cafe, communicating consistently with the team to keep everything moving smoothly.
Which takes me to cafe. Cafe was one of the spaces that felt the most familiar to me as it’s the closest thing to the work I know from home. It’s a space built for sharing food and drinks. I learned how to prepare a yummy tea-centered meal. Spending time with Tran as she planned an amazing staff lunch, good music playing every time without fail. Or Tran’s random cleaning side-quests. My slot spent so much time in the cafe we eventually became known as the cafe slot haha. But the cafe wasn’t just a place to work; it was also where we held events. Like small karaoke sessions, movie nights, dance practice, seminars, and most memorably graduation.
As much as I could talk about the actual work that was done, at the end of the day, it’s the people and community that make Obubu work. I can’t imagine what my experience would have looked like if not for the amazing people. First and foremost, shout out to my senpais from slot 2 who welcomed us in with open arms. I could always count on them for a good conversation or adventure. They made sure I never went a day without laughing, and that I was well fed and well loved. The girls (and Tomas), you truly meant everything to me this summer.
Summer days also brought visitors of their own. We had volunteers come through and throw themselves into everything Obubu, taking the experience back home with them to Tokyo. We even hosted a high school class from Yokohama, where the students spent several days on the farm to learn about daily life and the hardships small towns like Wazuka are facing. These moments were a good reminder about the significance of sharing this kind of work with others. That teaching isn’t just for tourists passing by, but for the youth who might want to carry it forward, which is started by telling the stories from farms like Obubu.
I actually want to highlight a moment with the students. During a discussion about the future of small towns in Wazuka, one of them asked me what I thought about combatting the declining population, and what I believed would be the most effective way to face it. All I could do was emphasize the importance of continuing the story of this town. If there’s anything my background as an informatics student has taught me, it’s that information is power, not just in how it’s collected, but in how it’s shared. Wazuka’s story doesn’t need a single format to survive; it just needs to keep being told, whether that’s through technology or simply through people like me carrying it home with them.
Then there were the days off – aka the days to enjoy Japan. Some of my favorite memories were spent with the team in Kyoto city, from Katrina’s very awesome tea event to an afternoon at the pottery festival. Other days were slower on purpose, the kind where you’d just stay in Wazuka and catch up on sleep. But even the completely unplanned evenings after work had a way of turning into something good. To be honest, no one really made plans unless there was a big event happening, but the nice thing was that people were always happy to be in each other’s company, especially if food was involved… Our beloved Hama Sushi.
Thank you Marusya for taking care of me, and for always being particularly vigilant about my well-being. I’m soo extremely grateful to have had you as my mentor, and you made the meanest matchas >:). Thank you to the wonderful team of staff and assistant managers that carried the weight of Obubu on their backs – literally every day. And of course, thank you to my fellow slot 3 team; we were so fun hehe. Everyone here has shown me an insurmountable amount of passion, diligence, patience, and most of all – kindness. There is no amount of times I can say it for it to actually encapsulate the level of gratitude I feel, but thank you, thank you so much from the bottom of my heart for allowing me to be a part of your Obubu story.
Following my time at Obubu, I plan to return home and complete my undergraduate education – whoop class of 2027! During this time and into the future, I plan to host gatherings and continue to work with local businesses to share my love for tea. Creating many more memories using tea as the vessel, while sharing my stories from Obubu every step of the way.
Circling back to the car ride in 99. After talking about our favorite memories at Obubu, Liszt follows up by asking if we think it’d be possible for us to remember this exact moment 5 years from now. I believe I can, not only because I will be thinking about these small precious moments at Obubu regularly, but it will now forever live in this blog post :p. On a final note, let me tell you about the first cup of tea that started my journey. It was the first night of the internship. All of slot 2 & 3 (and Amber) sat together around Hojicha house tea room. New location, new faces, and a new beginning of sharing tea with fascinating strangers. Thank you! <3
“Sharing tea with a fascinating stranger is one of life’s true delights.” – Uncle Iroh (Avatar: The Last Airbender)