It’s spring, and spring means tea season! This month we have seen the gradual transformation of Wazuka as one by one our tea fields wake up and start budding, with waves of neon green growth popping up across town.
It’s a magical time to visit the tea fields, where you can really see the different growing rates of cultivars. Every week the town looks different as shading nets are applied over fields which will be harvested for shaded teas like matcha or gyokuro.
But tea fields weren’t the only source of excitement at Obubu this month – read on to find out what else has been happening for us on the farm in April!
Tea shading & harvest
April 29th saw our first harvest and processing day of 2026! This was an exciting day for everyone, with all interns, assistant managers, and staff joining Akky-san in the factory to process our first sencha harvest.
In the lead-up to starting our harvest, we’ve been doing lots of preparatory work in the tea fields. Many of our teas are shaded, so we’ve been spending beautiful spring days fixing up shading shelves and applying shading nets across our tea bushes. These shading nets will limit the amount of sunlight our young tea buds are exposed to over the next few weeks, giving them a sweeter and more umami flavour profile.
Japanese Tea Basics: The Book
We are excited to share the realisation of a long-running project here at Obubu: our Japanese Tea Basics book! Education has always been one of our core pillars; in addition to hands-on training, our internship programme also includes comprehensive educational training that covers the finer details of tea from a more theoretical perspective.
This began back in 2018, and interns have shaped the programme ever since, each contributing their own expertise, research, and time. By 2025, that collective knowledge had grown into five educational sessions that all interns receive and teach to their fellow interns, too. Previous Assistant Manager Miatook on the long task of gathering that content into a book, and now we are excited to be able to offer it to you!
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Japanese Tea Basics Book
¥3,000
George & Moè’s wedding
April 25th saw an immensely special day in the history of Obubu – the wedding of George (Obubu staff member & former intern #94) and Moè (former Obubu staff & former intern #67). George and Moè met here at Obubu in 2019, and we were honoured to host both their families and friends, from near and far, at this very important place in both their lives.
Transforming a tea farm into a beautiful wedding venue was an exciting and challenging project in the weeks preceding the wedding – but we’ll let the photos from the day speak for themselves. Congratulations to George and Moè!
Handrolling workshop with Kenta-san
On April 18th, the Wazuka Hand Rolling Preservation Society hosted its annual hand-picking and hand-rolling event. This is a highlight in our yearly calendar, as it’s a chance for us all to spend a few hours in the spring morning sun hand-picking tea leaves before heading to Wazuka-Cha Cafe to watch the team, led by our friend Kenta Hosoi, expertly craft beautiful needle-shaped sencha.
During the six hours of hand rolling, it’s a chance for the tea community in Wazuka and beyond to come together, share stories, make new friends, and support the preservation of this traditional craft. And at the end of the day, we got to enjoy a freshly hand-picked, rolled, and brewed cup of sencha – one of the most hard-earned cups of tea you can taste. This year’s temomicha auction price was ¥1,000,000 per kilo, up from ¥750,000 last year.
Slot 2 interns arrive!
A big tea welcome to our second slot of interns this year! These interns arrived just in time for George’s wedding and the start of spring harvest – an exciting beginning to their time here at Obubu. Welcome Tomaš (#223, Slovakia), Leah (#224, USA), Jessica, (#225, USA), Jennifer (#226, USA), Flori (#227, Romania), Dhvani (#228, USA), and Madeline (#229, USA)!
Visits to Obubu
This month we were excited to welcome numerous visitors to Obubu!
The team from Yoshida Chaen visited us at the beginning of the month to learn about our tea tour programme, as they are starting to implement tourism at their own tea farm in Ibaraki. We enjoyed a few days of sharing wisdom and experience, as well as sharing delicious tea. Yoshida Chaen make some of our favourite wakoucha, so if you are ever in Ibaraki, please visit them!
In April we also welcomed several volunteers to help out at the farm, including Kimiko (read her blog post about her experience here), former intern #152 & kickstarter manager Sara, and former Assistant Manager #6 Alix. Thanks to their help, we were able to turn Obubu extra beautiful for George’s wedding!
Upcoming at Obubu
In addition to our regular 4-hour tea tour and 2-hour matcha tour, we also have a few exciting workshops coming up in collaboration with local Wazuka artisans:
🍡 28th May: Mochi workshop with Toshi-san, our long-time friend and partner, and a 3rd-generation sweets-maker and mochi specialist. You’ll pound your own rice into mochi, create tea-flavored anko and fillings, and finally craft the perfect mochi daifuku to be enjoyed with a delicious cup of our tea.
🫖 2nd June: Pottery workshop with Atsuko-san, a local Wazuka resident who runs a pottery school and has been a ceramicist for 30 years. With this tranquil experience, you’ll be able to hand-build your own cup or chawan!
🌸 4th June: Wagashi workshop with Ishida-san, a third-generation master of Japanese traditional confectionery from Wazuka. In this workshop, you will learn to create three wagashi from start to finish. Then you will enjoy them with a cup of our matcha in a traditional chawan!
🌱 16 June: Handrolling workshop with Kenta-san, president of the Wazuka Hand Rolling Preservation Society. You’ll be able to make your own tea from start to finish completely by hand – you’ll pan fire the leaves, and hand-roll them on hoiro, a traditional Japanese hand rolling table, and then take home the tea to enjoy with friends and family!
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