Hi!
Before Obubu:
I was cleaning out my cupboards in the kitchen of my shared flat in London, knowing that I will move back to Lithuania soon. I’m not a hoarder, but I tend to keep good things that won’t expire stored away for awhile, sometimes until I forget about them. And of course, the said cupboards were filled with all sorts of different teas and infusions from places I forgot I’ve been to and times I have discarded as long past. Overjoyed, I ran to my friends in the living room: “Guys, I’ve loved tea even before I loved tea!”, to which they looked at me with confusion and glanced at eachother: “Did nobody ever tell her she was obsessed?”.
Funnily enough, I didn’t realise how much tea was part of my life until I decided to pursue it seriously.
Growing up in Lithuania, tea and herbals have always been a certain medicine – mixtures of black teas infused with berries, ginger and lemon were always there to help deal with cold weather and a cup of chamomile was always present before bed. I even made sure to always brew loose-leaf – even as I child I thought tasted better! And yet, it was so commonplace that I never paid this interest any mind.
At eighteen, I moved out of Lithuania and came to London to study film. It was tons of fun, but there were a lot of sleepless nights, trying my best to meet the deadlines in the morning and keep my sanity in place. And unfortunately, being a huge coffee drinker, it just wasn’t keeping me awake anymore. I don’t remember how exactly, but I remember brewing a whole pot of green tea to myself to stay up for a few more hours (it later turned into three pots – please don’t do what I’ve done). And then it happened – I’ve never felt that hyper in my whole life. My flatmates were terrified of me genuinely running around the whole flat, but I was just so fascinated by the fact that the caffeine in tea was affecting me way more that coffee did. I soon started making tea for myself and my friends nearly every night, introducing them to things like “jam tea” or some weird concoctions that I’ve made. I loved how much closer it brought us and yet, I still never realized I loved tea.
Due to various reasons, working in film was getting harder and harder. Even more so, living in London with a freelancer’s wage. I worked as a bartender alongside my career, but constantly feeling like I was going against the current became too much. And on an overworked nervous whim, I decided to go to a monastery.
I flew to Nepal and stayed with the monks for a few weeks, on a Buddhist retreat. It changed a lot of things for me. We had teatime every day after lunch, where we would silently overlook the hills of Kathmandu while sipping on the Nepalese milk tea. Even now, I look back on it with great love and reverence. And at some point during such an afternoon, it just popped into my head – I’m going to open a teashop. I called my mum and told her of this revelation, to which she just said: “Oh yeah as a kid you always said you’d do that”. Thanks mum, could have told me earlier.
I travelled for a while still, visiting places like Mongolia, Taiwan and Japan and when it was time to come back to London, I immediately enrolled into UK Tea Academy and started working at Mei Leaf in London.
Working at Mei Leaf was a real turning point. All of a sudden I was exposed to every tea I could wish for and teas I’ve never even imagined. I was all of a sudden introduced to the world of tasting notes and the real complexity and excitement of quality tea. I was swept away. And it became family – I was an anointed teahead with incredible love for the way tea made friendships, deepened every conversation and opened the present moment. Now I really knew I loved tea and people that led me to it.
After some time working in the teashop, I moved back to my hometown in Lithuania and opened a little tea kiosk there for the summer. I treated it as a trial run for something bigger, but it was an invaluable experience of managing a business at a small scale. And people loved it! The pure fact that someone paid money for a recipe I made was insane to me – and the joy I felt when they made an effort to come back after their cup and tell me how much they liked it almost felt like grace. But I knew I still had so much to learn and I found myself hoping to really become a tea master – whatever that meant for me. And that’s where Obubu came in.
Why Obubu:
I already knew of Obubu while researching various tea education courses, but it really came into picture when I studied under Global Japanese Tea Organisation. Through kind words of Simona and Anna I was encouraged to once again change my life for a while. More than anything else, I wanted to experience the tea-making part of tea, to see what it goes through to reach our cups and conversations. And of course, I wanted to come back to Japan and surround myself in culture so deeply ingrained in tea and its aesthetics. And honestly, the Instagram stories just seemed so fun.
At Obubu:
From the moment I came here, I could tell that people here really got along – it reminded of being back on campus of my uni. It’s a very communal environment, where we share not only our work space but we live together in a foreign country – it’s really not an exaggeration to call Obubu a family and I’m so grateful that I have shared my Obubu experience with all of these wonderful tea nerds. And I hope to keep the friends I made here in my life for as long as I can.
But what was the Obubu experience, really? As I came in September, I was still in time for the autumn harvest. I’ve never worked on a farm before or had any gardening experience, so I was incredibly excited to learn about the real farming side of tea-making.
I got to not only learn about the machinery and harvesting techniques, but also partake in the expertise of Akky-san (our tea guru) and his many years of experience. Yet, it wasn’t his speed or precision with the harvester blades that was the captivating bit, but his energy and the genuine love he had for the fields and the tea plant. And I have to agree with him, even though going to the fields starts out as a curiosity about the tea plant, the terroir, the soil and all the science that comes into realizing that cup of tea – it didn’t take long for me to hope to get to the fields just to BE there. Just the magic of it. Of course, harvesting is hard, laborious work, but the fun and giggles you get out of doing it with friends makes it worth carrying every single heavy teabag! Not to mention, the thrill of speeding the forest roads while balancing on the bags of tea packed on the back of a Kei truck and the delicious cup of tea during the break <3.
After harvesting, we also got to do some processing – not as much as Spring interns do, but we still managed to learn the bits and bobs of Obubu’s retro machinery and understand how the steps influence the character of the finalized product! We experienced the Autumn Moon Sencha harvest pretty soon into the internship and also had an opportunity to make our own Wakoucha at the end of our internship.
Aside from tea production, as interns we also partake in tea education – namely leading tea tours for the guests that visit the farm. While not everyone likes this side of Obubu activities, I was really grateful to be able to partake in tea-related public speaking and learn to answer a variety of questions as continuing on the tea education vocation is something I’m hoping to do in the future.
At heart, I’m a bit of a nerd and tea theory is one of my strong suits. So, being able to share that not only with my fellow interns but with a wide variety of people from all sorts of backgrounds has been an incredibly exciting venture! But to be true, I did enjoy short tours a lot more than the regular 4-hour tours as I got to engage with people in a more relaxed manner and share tea knowledge in a conversational setting.
Naturally, tea tour wasn’t the only education around Obubu – we were also exposed to a range of activities from tea roasting, hand-rolling, mochi making and more! Overall, it’s almost hard to recall everything that I learned while being here, but I know that I’ll be taking so much from my time here on my journeys to come!
And speaking of journeys, I have to mention all the amazing trips that I went to during my weekends. Huge shoutout to my senpais Jack and Holden (interns #179 and 180) for taking me and my batch of interns on oh so many countryside roadtrips – en experience I would never had managed on my own. We toured Tokoname, Ine, Amanohashidate, Kinosaki and many more, went to many different Izakayas, stargazed on a remote beach, walked around old towns in cute little kimonos with my girl CC (intern #183), attended local parties and had some insanely delicious food! There are too many happy moments and people that shared that joy with me and I can’t list them all, but everyone at Obubu made my Japan adventure unforgettable!
After Obubu:
I am venturing on to Thailand to visit some tea farms that Katrina (intern #138) told me about and take some time off in a forest monastery (much needed after the hectic Obubu). After some time meditating I will return home to Lithuania to help my family with their restaurant and some other exciting projects – hopefully will get started on organizing my own tea tasting experiences and reopen my little tea stall! But I know that I won’t be able to stay in one place for too long and I will get travelling again – so who knows, perhaps we’ll meet in Japan once more!
With love,
Beatrice
Instagram: @ar.bete
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