Sarah Mazza

Palagiano, Italy

Intern #146

https://onepurplemagpie.wordpress.com/

Instagram: @sarah.mazza and @one_purple_magpie

I have been drinking tea since my childhood, since my grandmother made tea for my family when we visited her, because my mother did not enjoy espresso, more commonly offered to guests in my hometown in Southern Italy. To be honest, more than tea, at the time I was more interested in the box of buttery Danish cookies.

It was during university that I started appreciating tea more, and “putting the kettle on” was a great excuse to keep the late-night conversations with friends going on for hours. I figured out later that we were sharing roasted kukicha, but at the time it was just the “weird branches that taste very good”. 

During my master in Anthropology of Food, I chose tea as my research subject, and the topic of my ethnography became the consumption of Japanese (and loose-leaf) tea among Italian aficionados. After graduating, I have been working in hospitality, still waiting for the right moment to go back to my ethnographic research and expanding it from consumption of tea to the study of the whole supply chain. 

WHY OBUBU

After burying myself in books, I found myself going in circles: I kept reading and trying to learn more and more, but there was still so much I could not grasp. I could read of how tea is produced, farmed and harvested but still not understanding it. Obubu provided this first-hand experience that allowed me to fully be involved and to learn with my own body where and how tea comes from. 

Nonetheless, I found in Obubu a reflection of the values I believe in: quality over quantity,, and the existence of a community, within and outside the farm’s borders. 

DURING OBUBU

One of my best memories is linked to the construction of the upper floor rooms in the Houjicha House. Building a space for the next interns was for me a way of expressing care for the next interns’ generations, as well as a way of expressing gratitude for the interns that built the spaces that I was inhabiting. 

Then the harvest season started, and we started making tea. I thought that by being at Obubu and experiencing how tea is made, I would have been able to grow a better appreciation of it. Turns out that I will never be able to appreciate in full the complexity of it and the mastery behind it.

AFTER OBUBU

I am still undecided if this is the right time to go back to books and academic research. I will miss spending time in the tea fields, supporting the process in the factory, being surrounded by the amazing people I met here and waking up with joy and expectations for the day to come.

After Obubu, no matter what I’ll be doing, and where I’ll be, I’ll be there with some cups of Sencha of the Earth to share!

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