Hello, Pau here, I arrived on September 2023 at Obubu as an Assistant Manager together with Sarah. A year has gone so fast, and it is time to wrap up my experience. Following the steps of Justin et Jean, who were my senpai when I arrived here I will try to explain how I got here, how the year has been and where I am heading next.
Before Obubu, before tea
Before I became interested in tea I delved in tea I used to work for a coffee roasting company in Barcelona. I learned a great deal there on coffee on the many years I worked there, luckily I also learnt a great deal about tea. That company also owned a tea shop and I would help there from time to time, bit by bit being sucked into the tea rabbit hole. After many years working there and thanks to meeting a wonderful tea farmer from Kagoshima, I decided to go to Japan to learn about tea directly from the source. Unfortunately, Covid-19 hit just a month or so after arriving.
After a brief detour in Sweden and returning to coffee related jobs I kept learning about tea, its culture and its craftsmanship. Learnt more through the Association mondiale du thé japonais courses and started a blog about tea. Everything collided when just before participating in the GJTA Master Course, that took place in Wazuka I saw the role position for Assistant Manager at Obubu, and applied that same night. Funny enough, I did my interview a few hours before flying to Japan to stay at Wazuka during the period of the GJTA Master Course.
At Obubu, many things happen
After my arrival to Obubu to start as an Assistant Manager we quickly were brought up to speed by our senpai and soon after we were taking part in the preparation of tea tours, brewing teas for guests and helping Akky and the other staff members in the fields. Autumn harvest arrived soon after, and it became clear how busy any harvest period can get. Autumn is the “easy” harvesting period and I remember just how sore from carrying bags up or down the hills I was. It was a blast though, and we combined those activities with the interns and with tea tours or insider time when the staff put us to work in several different projects. My favourite, which it could not have happened without the help of my fellow managers Jean et Sarah was the “Assistant Manager Education” or AME for short.
We devised the program to create an equal knowledge floor for all AMs about tea in many of its aspects during late autumn and then spend most of the winter nailing down the contents. It was a great experience to present all the different topics to ourselves and to the staff and interns. The feedback was great and all of us to prepare them for the upcoming Assistant Managers who joined us in March, Alix and Mac.
Once March arrived things at the farm became busy, on one side we said goodbye to our senpai, Jean and we also welcomed Alix and Mac, together with many new interns. At this time of the year, both tourism and work in the fields starts to go up again. For tea tours we welcomed many groups specially on the weeks leading to the sakura blooming, one of my favourite times. In the fields, excitement starts to build up as you see the bushes growing every day until they are ready for harvest. The mountains around Wazuka suddenly light up with a bright green colour for a few weeks until the bushes are harvested, it is quite the scene.
As Assistant Manager you get to be extra involved in the harvest time as we often lead a harvesting team into our Blue forest field, harvest the leaves and in the afternoon spend many hours processing them into Sencha or even Gyokuro sometimes. If you try any of the teas from the Naturel line there is a big change, it has been processed by interns and Assistant Managers together.
After the busy spring harvest we get sort of a break while trimming the bushes and already start preparing for summer harvest. Trimming, while not so physically demanding, is one of the most difficult to master. Both persons holding the machine have to be very careful to not trim too deep into the bush while keeping the round shape of the bush and moving both at unison.
Summer greeted us with the Tsuyu, the rainy season at the end of June, early July. It is a time of the year preceded by many exciting occurrences, like the birth of the praying mantis from egg left earlier in the year. The blossoming of the hydrangeas and the rice planting season also happens at that time. I still have a strong memory of my arrival at Obubu in September 2023, the rice field in front of our office was getting ripe and shifting to a golden yellow colour before it got harvested a bit later. The sounds of the frogs in the mornings and evening was so soothing.
I learned so much from everyone at Obubu, with the interns you always get a different mix of skills and experiences and I learned many great things. From all the staff I learned farming in general, field management, a lot about tasting and discerning processing details that transfer into the cup. How a small tea company runs a farm, an education program and a tourism program at the same time. Most of all I learned how passionate they are about tea, from its growing and processing to the education and promotion of it. You get an incredible opportunity if you join as an Assistant manager to experience it all, from the inside.
Outside Obubu, many things happened too
One of many things that one can experience while being an assistant manager, and to some extent as an intern too is experiencing life in rural Japan and travelling to different areas of the country. In town, we are so lucky to have amazing natural scenery and a bunch of interesting places and people to get to know around the area. One of them is the wonderful Nakai Sensei, where we had the absolute pleasure of learning Sencha tea ceremony together. She is a multidisciplinary tea ceremony teacher for both Matcha and Sencha ceremonies as well as flower arrangement teacher during the evenings and still finds time to help at her tea and rice farm during the day.
There are many amazing and open-minded farmers in town like Teruko, Uejima, Morisaki, Kenta, Hiroshito and Tsuen-san. Great initiatives like Ikku-san who runs a wonderful lodge in town and cooks pizzas every Thursday at Tsunagiba. Met local artisan like Sato-san who also runs a lovely lodge and a pottery space in town. Learnt from Toshi-san (AKA Mochi Man) and Idemasa-san about traditional Japanese sweets by hand pounding mochi and also hand making wagashi in their respective workshop at the first floor of our factory. Last but not least I am deeply grateful to have had the opportunity to learn from our hand rolling master, Kenta-san, who not only grows awesome tea, but he has also won the national hand rolling championship twice, last year the winner team included him, our president Akky and Simona previous staff member of Obubu, now president of the Global Japanese Tea Association.
Myself I have also had the opportunity to learn about tea from many other people like Nakamura san, from who I learnt a bunch about tea processing at his tea shop in Uji. From Kanji-san, I learnt many things about a Tokushima prefecture speciality Awabancha, and its particular way of fermentation. I also had the opportunity to learn from Yamamoto-san in Shizuoka about his particular approach to aromatic and withered green teas.
From Honda-san, also from Shizuoka, I learnt how beautifully a tea plant can grow when the environment and the farm management are in tune. Learnt from Masako and Katsuei about their efforts in developing an even more rural area than Wazuka in the beautiful mountain tops of Umegashima, very close to Mt.Fuji. Honda-san showed us how they grow Tencha in Aichi prefecture, I fell in love with the way they build those floating roof over the tea fields. From Hideki-san I learnt about the many experiences he had while travelling with his van/tearoom all over the country. From Suzuki-san from the Shizuoka Research centre, I learned so much about cultivar breeding and investigation. Adam, taught me some of the deeper significances of the Japanese culture before and during my stay in Japan and being able to recognize them while living here.
There are many more people I meet and learnt from during my time in Japan, both about tea and about other things. I am grateful to have met and learnt from them. Obubu is what you make out of it, I am deeply grateful for all the great experiences, travels and encounters I experienced during my time as Assistant Manager.
After Assistant Manager
My time as Assistant Manager has given me tools to not only understand tea in a more in depth way. But also given me tools and skills on the manager and business skill set that I also wanted to develop while working at the farm. Personally, I will continue to promote tea and the work of the farmers from Wazuka and other prefectures. Professionally I will continue to work in tea, so you will see me around.
Enjoy tea and enjoy Japan!
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