Obubu`s Euro Tour continues from the Western Europe all the way to the Eastern neighbor – Hungary. With our friend and Obubu’s tea club member Ambrus we took the first half of the day to look around Budapest and got really moved by stunning European architecture and prosperous times it marked. Matsu-san couldn’t stop taking photos and was especially fascinated by catholic churches, such as Saint Matthias church, to which our friend Ambrus had taken us.
Sightseeing aside, a tea event was waiting for us in the evening. Having visited several universities in the UK it was time to see what a tea house in Europe looks like. A tea house, called Hanami, agreed to have us for the evening. What a nice place it was, with a tea store on the ground floor and a cosy tea tasting area in the basement with calm Asian tunes and pleasantly-dim lighting. Just before the event another pleasant surprise – the biggest news portal in Hungary – origo.hu came all the way to have an interview with Matsu-san about his way to tea and then to Hungary. So our Hungarian-speaking friends look out for it!
The pace of the tea event was well set by the general atmosphere of the venue – calm and relaxed. While we did our best to learn Hungarian, the most we could say was jo napot (hello), so what a great help it was to have Ambrus with us, who assisted us with translations both from English and Japanese to Hungarian. The event happened to be quite small, due to the capacity of the venue, but very personable. Even after we finished the main tea tasting session and our talk about tea, event attendees and keen tea lovers still wanted more. So what could we do? We together with the shop owner Paul, kept on serving tea and having a friendly chat. We felt really happy the event turned out so friendly and personable. What can be better than sitting down with a cup of tea and sharing love for tea.
Big thanks to Hanami for letting the event happen. And to Ambrus and Judit for organizing our entire visit to Hungary, including the stay in their cozy apartment and the best mushroom soup ever! Next- Germany.
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