Before Obubu
I grew up drinking sencha with my family. Sitting around the table after a meal, we would drink the warm, rich green and slightly bitter drink. My mom would often call this her favourite time of the day. Thus, I grew to associate tea with connection and comfort.
Perhaps because of the nature of my introduction to tea, what drew me to learning more about tea was its anthropology. I was particularly interested in the social aspects of tea; how a cup becomes an invitation and how sharing a brew with others becomes a connection, both through the simple act of enjoying the same infusion and through words spoken whilst sharing it.
I explored this interest through art, mainly. Whether it was a fine art, multi-media project, digital infographic, website, or video project, my art would often connect to tea–so much so that my teachers and classmates could immediately tell a work was mine because of the subject. Though creating these projects involved some research and education about tea, I barely toed the threshold of the world of Japanese tea with these.
Obubu’s assistant manager programme seemed like the perfect opportunity to explore my interest in tea further and learn about the cultivation, harvesting, processing, and other technical aspects of tea and tea production.
During Obubu
I thought about how to best describe my experience at Obubu without writing a book. In the end, I decided to list some special moments from these 10 months.
Winter and early Spring: Earthy green tea bushes dusted with snow. Learning how to brew properly. Trimming for the first time with Pau in Aoimori. Harvesting with Akky-san, his kids, and George (#195) in Eriyoshi. Processing sweet sakura with Higashi-san and Araki-san. Learning tea tour brewing from Mac (AM #5) and receiving our first tea tour training and presentation from Alix (AM #7).
Spring: Silky pale pink cherry blossoms, bright green tender tea shoots. Harvesting on Tenku with Jackie (#191). Factory alive at night, symphony of machines, wild-tasting shincha. Tokoname with Sky (#192). Visiting Kasagi, now one of my favourite cities, for the first time, with Katrina, Tran (AM #12), Marilena (AM #11), and Nicole (AM #10). Conversations in the Obubu House kitchen with Eva (#187) and Cara (#189). Filming in Tenku with Chihiro (#190) and Josh (#188). Unshading Monzen Sugimoto with Emily (#194). Harvesting and processing Natural Sencha from Aoimori with Miwako-san and Marie (#129). Running into Afi (#198) on a walk and finding we share a love for writing. Learning how to drive the harvesting machine in Aoimori with Hiro-san.
Summer: Rich blue skies with fluffy clouds, heavy air. Deep-trimming Erihara with Alex (#193). harvesting in Tenku with Adam (#197) and Zehra (#196). harvesting in Somada with Marusya (#204) and Andreas (#207), hard droplets of rain falling as we rushed to load the keitora. Deep-trimming Sugimoto with Kirill (#208). Tasting freshly-ground Gokou matcha for the first time with Milan (#205). Sado lessons with Nakai-sensei with Mai (#202), Mareike (#203), and Trey (#206). Receiving a “Super excellent” message from George in the Newsletter chat. Harvesting and processing black tea with KD (#201), Garance (#199), Izzy (#200), Zehra (196), and Tran. Visiting Matsu-san and Marjolein (#83) in Nagasaki.
Autumn: Blue-gray clouds curtaining the sky, deep green, heavy, slippery leaves, tea trees bursting with white-and-yellow blossoms, mountains mottled with different shades of fire. Trimming three Monzen fields with Akky-san, Stefanee (#214) in the morning, and Flor (#212) in the afternoon. Special secret meetings with Kayo-san to decide the winner of the monthly photo contest. Chatting with Lotte (#215) in the matcha factory. Board games with Mariah (#211), Shannon (#210), Stefanee, Lotte, and Nicholas (#209). Private tea tours with Andreas (#213). Last farming day trimming with Pau in Aoimori.
Obubu is a very special place–it is the meeting point of many different people from all over the world with different backgrounds, all drawn to tea. I’ve had several conversations with guest and interns alike that it is amazing how all of us somehow ended up here. This coalescence of so many different experiences and perspectives and knowledge makes for such an enriching and unique environment. Coming straight from university, this was my first time really being surrounded by people of so many different ages, and I’m so grateful for this opportunity to learn and grow.
Project
At Obubu, my main leadership responsibilities involved helping to manage the education programme, composing the monthly newsletter, and intern coordination (managing intern projects and blog posting on the website). There were many little projects inside and outside of these leadership roles throughout the year, but I will just focus on my main project, which was writing a book to accompany the Japanese Tea Basics (JTB) course that all Obubu interns take part in.
A JTB book had been an idea for years, but it had yet to be realised. The book itself was mainly a project for me and Pau. Because we already had the existing JTB course to work with, created by staff and previous interns, writing the book mainly involved weaving together the information, bridging gaps where needed, tethering facts to sources (many of which were missing from the JTB lessons), and creating figures to illustrate information. One outcome from this process is a stronger integrity for our education programme, as we have gathered references that align with the information in our JTB course. While making this book, I also created a few infographics, including ones on matcha and sencha production, that can both be included in the book and used for future educational purposes at Obubu.
Thank you so much to my all the Obubu staff, senpai, co-assistant managers, and interns for everything you taught me this year.
After Obubu
After Obubu, I plan to share Japanese tea with my friends and family, and possibly hold workshops in tea. I hope to introduce more people to delicious teas like sencha and kukicha, which often go overlooked.
I summarised my experiences over the past 10 months in my quarterly blog posts, which you can read here: