The seasonal timeline of this region in Japan truly allows us to experience Autumn for an extended period, with the prime colours of Momiji (紅葉) still to come. Nights are cool and quiet, and during the day our grounds are bustling with several tea tours led by our staff and interns. Our busy tourism season is in full swing again, and we are happy to welcome guests amongst the changing beautiful autumn colours of Wazuka – excitedly anticipating their prime crimson shades towards the end of November!
Autumn harvest is also underway now, with Akky-san leading almost daily harvests of Akibancha and Tencha. The familiar sounds and smells of processing in our factory permeate the air, and for those who have been here a long time, this has become a natural part of the Obubu ecosystem.
Our neighbouring rice farmers have also been harvesting. Since Obubu is situated in front of several rice fields, we’re lucky enough to see this process start to finish… including the very rice field that is right in front of our factory! It is quite special to see Wazuka rice being harvested, since we use it for our Tea Tour lunches and household meals.
Read on to see what else we’ve been up to this month…
Japanese Tea Basics Online
Available Now!
It’s finally here! Our Japanese Tea Basics online courses have fully launched. Our education team has been working on these courses all year, and we’re so excited to finally share them with you.
- JTB 1: Kinds of Japanese Tea
- JTB 2: Factors Affecting Tea Brewing
- JTB 3: Tea Agriculture
- JTB 4: Teaware
- JTB 5: History
- Or, if you know you want all five, purchase the bundle here!
Each course comes with lifetime access to text, image, and video content on our online learning platform, as well as access to live webinars with our education team. These are happening every Tuesday at 10am JST throughout November – book your course now to join us!
Autumn Processing Update
This month has seen us begin our autumn harvest – our second busiest harvest season of the year after spring. We’ll continue harvesting and processing into November – check back in next newsletter for a full report of our autumn processing!
In the meantime, here are some scenes from the fields and the factory…
Welcome New Interns!
Autumn also means we have welcomed our last group of interns for 2026! We are excited to have Caramia (#237, USA), Antje (#238, Belgium), Amanda (#239, USA), José (#240, Chilé), Hong (#241, Germany), Jenica (#242, USA), and David (#243, USA). These 7 interns will be with us during the Autumn harvest and bustling tea tour season, for which they have already shown incredible dedication and a curious spirit. They will also be our new Assistant Managers’ first intern slot of their time here, and it is coming to light very quickly how hard goodbyes will be….
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