Hello !
I am Mathilde, I come from France and I am 20 years old.
Before obubu and now I am a student in Angers in France. It’s an agricultural school called Ecole Supérieure d’Agriculture and I’m going to study here to get a degree as an engineer in agronomy and environment.
Before obubu, like everyone who comes here, I liked to drink tea. But compared to the other trainees, I didn’t know much about it and even less about Japanese tea.
In France, tea is less popular than coffee for example, which is a pity because tea is an interesting and beautiful product. I still can’t believe it’s so difficult to understand all the particularities!
Why obubu?
So if tea wasn’t the main focus, why did I choose to come to a tea farm and find it?
I have been passionate about Asian culture for a long time and in recent years, Japan became the first country I wanted to discover.
I got my 2nd year in my school and the last step was to do a 3 month internship in a foreign country if you wanted.
In my school, the network between all the students who studied at ESA is well developed and I received from my school a list with all the different internships done by the students and one of them was here in Japan in this little tea farm called Obubu!
It was an obvious choice for me to come here!
During Obubu
During my stay in Obubu, I really enjoyed learning so much about tea. I also met the locals, worked with the other interns and the staff at Obubu!
My main project was to link tea with an activity I really like to do: baking.
So I made a lot of recipes around tea flavours and wrote a lot of blogs on the Obubu website. I also finally decided to create an online book and was able to print almost all the recipes already made by Kayo-san and the previous intern.
I also helped the staff with harvesting, processing and other work for the company.
Discovering Japanese culture through wazuka and Obubu was a very good experience, I am so happy to have the opportunity to come here.
Thank you to the other interns and staff for introducing me to many teas that I didn’t know before!
After OBUBU
Now that I have finished my internship, what can I say about 3 months ago?
It was the first time I travelled alone for a “long time”. I’ve always been interested in travelling and I’ve known for a few years that I want to work and see as many countries as possible. But before this, I never had the opportunity to do so. After these three months, I can say that my choice is consolidated and what I want to do later is clearer for me!
Being alone in a foreign country and facing some difficulties was, in retrospect, a good learning experience!
Working in the field of tea? Why not, it’s a very interesting and difficult product!