And just like that, we’re halfway through our time here.
The summer is here – formally hailing the arrival of Tsuyu (the rainy season) and informally, Frog and Bug Season. The frog choir in the rice paddy across from Hojicha House has now been joined by the cicada chorus, drowning out the hum of the processing factories within our vicinity. The spiders that string up between the rows of tea bushes in every tea field (and on our back fence) keep most of the other bugs at bay, although they are not always appreciative of being disturbed when the Akky-support team rolls up to deep-trim, regular trim or harvest from the bushes they are so generously guarding. The mantis that patrol the tops of the bushes are also not exactly appreciative of our efforts to save them from the machines, but they are strong allies of the spiders in keeping our tea bushes pest free.
The summer brings with it our wonderful summer interns and the summer harvest, which was quite unlike our spring harvest in many ways. The summer harvest, for one, is much more brief than our spring one, with only a handful of nights spent processing comparatively to the majority of the month of May. We also harvested what (personally) felt like a lot more tencha, and did a lot of deep and regular trimming.
On occasion during Tsuyu, the Akky-support teams were inundated by rain and on a few (rare) occasions, lightning and thunder. I had notorious bad luck with rain, getting caught with rainy Akky-supports several times in June and July. In June, Izzy (#200) and I trimmed all morning in the rain on Shimojima, my hiking boots slowly filling with water. That definitely did not stop me squelching through Lawson in search of a sweet treat before Zehra (#196) and I spent the rest of the afternoon on Monzen deep-trimming. I managed to locate the slope where Marie (#129) had slipped from the Sayamakaori and promptly followed in her footsteps, descending three tea bushes straight down at a rate unknown to (wo)man. I remember screaming, not in fear but in surprise, as the dirt was soft and forgiving and I trusted the tea bushes to hold my weight. Once I had completely slowed my fall, I immediately looked up to find Akky-san staring down at me wide-eyed through the rain, showing the closest to fear I had ever seen him. I found out later from Mia (#9), that he had called me ‘dangerous’ for the stunt, despite him knowing full well that I have seen him slip and fall in several tea fields on a variety of occasions.
Back to my Tsuyu Akky-support luck – Andreas (#207) and I spent an entire afternoon deep-trimming Sugimoto with Akky-san in the downpour, which was his first Akky-support and the rain made it less enjoyable than it could have been. Meanwhile, Milan (#205) and I got caught in yet another downpour on Somada, where a biblical level flood event washed down the slope. We spent a nervous fifteen minutes in our beloved farming car (77) waiting for the lightning to pass before we returned to finish trimming. At one point, lightning struck (what felt like) incredibly close to us and the team back at Obubu heard it just as loud, with eyewitnesses commenting that it felt as though the entire Kyobancha house had rocked. Somehow, Milan and I survived the treacherous encounter with Tsuyu’s fury and still managed to drag ourselves to Lawson for a conbini lunch and ice cream after we’d finished trimming.
Tsuyu packed it in earlier than we anticipated, subsiding to allow us to experience the full wrath of the summer heat. Hiro-san often talks about how much he hates Japanese summer and that it makes him want to run away – if you have ever been lucky enough to experience a tea tour with him, you will be well aware of this tidbit of information. I spent a lot of my life in Australia, as I introduced to you in my first blog post, so I am no stranger to heat. It does not mean I like it – please refer to my time spent in Iceland and Aotearoa New Zealand’s South Island, and Japanese heat has a vengeance like no other. The heat is oppressive, the sun is a laser and it feels endless, with the forecast full of 30c+ for weeks on end. I have spent more than a decade of summers in Australia with 40c+ and I would choose those summers a thousand times over one Japanese summer.
August brings with it many Matsuri, or festivals, with the holiday of Obon landing smack bang in the middle of the month. I decided to head down to Ise, in Mie Prefecture south-east of Kyoto, and went to the beach there to spend a night. I grew up by the ocean, and living inland for so long makes me ever so much more fond of a sunset by the sea. I brought with me several teas to enjoy, one that I had been given at the 2025 Japanese Tea Conference in Kyoto and the other that I won from a tea giveaway by People of Tea. The first, a shaded tea from Kagoshima and the second, a roasted oolong from Taiwan. Both were immensely enjoyed as I tried to peer through the cloud cover over Ise Bay to make out my beloved Fuji-san.
Before Obon, I had the opportunity to make wakōcha with a few of the summer interns; Andreas, Mai (#202) and Kirill (#208). Wakōcha, if you’re not familiar, is Japanese black or red tea, and it is immensely delicious. Unfortunately for me, I was barely able to make oolong, despite our three day long Wakōcha effort. The interns were more successful than I, but the rain that washed away two of our three Wakōcha-making days was a bit of a dampener on our efforts. Still, we had a lot of fun as a group, spending the entire three days in the factory together, tasting each other’s tea at every step of the journey. If you ever pop by for a tea tour, or just to find some tea here at Obubu – keep an eye out for intern/assistant manager limited batch Wakōchas, as they are all incredibly unique and delicious.
With the summer slowly trickling to an end, it also marks the beginning of our final full season as Assistant Managers here at Obubu and our final batch of interns for this year. We are so excited to welcome them here in September, although it means we will also be farewelling our lovely summer interns. I will speak to you again when the heat has begun to eek into the autumn, my favourite season! I am very excited to see the hills turn red and orange as the days begin to grow shorter – but I will miss the bright heat and eating ice cream three times a day with my housemates!