This season started off with black tea. At least that is how it was supposed to start, given it was off season the results were mixed. There had been a previous attempt a couple of weeks before but with unfortunate results. This time to give us the best chance we had we hand picked tea, only selecting the most tender leaves we could find. Together with Alayna, Vincent et Clover we headed to Minami Oku (南奥) field. We spent the morning until lunch time, some listening to music some chatting. We had a competition to see who was able to pick the most tea, I ended up picking around 750g of raw leaf. Which after processing it, and inspired by tales of old I ended up sleeping with my little ball of tea. the final dried product turned out to be around 120gr of “black tea”. To be honest what I wound up making was an oolong that smelled liked malty bread. Not mould! Malty! I probably used too high a heat to dry out the leaves, that probably contributed to some of the roasted notes. But even so it was a lot of fun. I hope one day I’ll get a second chance to make something more special.
This season quite a lot happened from making promotional videos to going to Tokushima all together to the awabancha festival to trimming as well as construction. If anyone is wondering what awabancha is, it’s a delicous fermented tea from Tokushima. Mac wrote an amazing blog on the festival and the trip!
Christmas week soon was upon us, we had said goodbye to the interns and the team was small. This time it was my chance to shine, and I prepared an Italian style dinner. I made a risotto with 9 different kinds of mushrooms, cacciatora style chicken and a bunch of different side dishes. We all gathered together at Obubu ate together. Christmas dinner n opened presents
Over the winter holidays together with my brother who was visiting we went to Tokyo. We visited Ippodo Tea in Ginza, to say hi to a friend (and ex-obubu intern Marie).
This winter it snowed quite often, unfortunately or fortunately if you wanted to drive around. It often disappeared into the ground time came lunch. It was a bit sad but the few times it stuck overnight I went out to take photos of Wazuka covered in snow.
New interns joined us at the end of January, Eva and Josh! During the winter the Obubu team grew quite small, so the arrival of new people changed the atmosphere around.
Soon after, new AMs, Marilena, Mia and Nicole joined at the start of February. Seeing them go through the ropes, it brought back memories of when I first joined all the way back in September. Learning about tea tour, farming and how things work here.
Then there was the “kuuki” day. We were having a cleanup in the Houjicha building and we had some old stock that we had to get rid of, and we ended up planning a mission: fertilisation extravaganza! All hands were on deck we drove to the tea fields on a convoy of cars filled with the old stock. We were led by a white Kei-truck, once we reached the fields the operation started. There we fertilised the fields turning tea, into fertiliser which one day with turn back into tea
February came to an end and mother visited me. She was super exited to learn more about Japanese teas. So, she booked a tour, and I had the pleasure of brewing for my mother for tea tour. By the end just like all the guests who join our tours she became a tea master!
– KYoBAncHA! Harvest time! –
The day was upon us, it was kyobancha time! I was looking towards it ever since I tried my first cup all the way back in September. Unlike a regular sencha harvest, the tea has had all winter to grow quite large and heavy. The bushes stood as tall as some of the interns! Midway through the harvest it started raining on us, thankfully it was a passing shower and soon the clouds cleared. That day we harvested a bunch, even considering the leaves were wet we harvested more than 700kg of tea.
As I’m writing this, Tran came back, she’s an intern that came back for more, but this time, she joined the AM team. She’s an amazing baker! And when new interns arrived shortly after her she baked a couple of super yummy desserts.
Français 
English (UK)