Welcome to early autumn on the tea fields! As we shift towards cooler nights, flowers blossom, and the warmer autumnal colours begin to blanket our town, we’re transitioning from the summer quiet season into another busy period on the farm. Our second major tourism season in the autumn is fast approaching, and we’re preparing for autumn harvest in October.
This September, we have seen this year’s third group of interns graduate, and we have also welcomed a new slot of Assistant Managers to the team. We’re also releasing our long-awaited online courses this month – scroll down for more information!
It’s been an unusually rainy month for us, not just here in Wazuka but across all of Japan. This is of course always a risk for us – we shared in previous newsletters this summer about some of the landslide damage we had in one of our fields. Rain at unexpected times of year is an ongoing challenge for our local rice farmers as well as tea farmers, as all of us depend on an increasingly unpredictable weather system.
Meanwhile, farm life goes on – our neighbouring rice fields are almost ready for harvest, and we’re keeping our fingers crossed that the rain lets up in time for us to harvest our autumn teas in a few weeks!
Japanese Tea Basics Online: Launching October 13
We are excited to share the next stage of a long-running project here at Obubu: our Japanese Tea Basics courses are launching online!
Education has always been one of our core pillars: our internship programme includes a comprehensive education course that covers the basics of Japanese tea, from cultivation and processing through brewing, teaware, and history. Japanese Tea Basics took root in 2018, and interns have shaped the programme ever since, each contributing their own expertise, research, and time. This year, we are excited to make this educational resource available beyond our internship programme for the first time: first through the Japanese Tea Basics book prepared by AM #9 Mia, and now through our online courses prepared by staff member Pau, AM #18 Maren, and AM #13 Garance.
Each of the five courses takes between 1-2 hours to complete and includes a mix of text and video content, with comprehension quizzes and practical exercises to solidify theoretical learning. With every course purchase, you’ll receive access to a live webinar with the Obubu education team.
Ahead of our October 13 launch, we’re hosting a livestream this Thursday October 8 at 10am JST to give you a live introduction to the courses and the learning platform, and to answer all your questions. Join us live on Instagram or YouTube!
Slot 3 Interns Graduate
September began with emotional farewells, as our third intern cohort of the year has graduated! These brilliant interns were with us through the hottest parts of summer, supporting the summer harvest season and keeping our fields weed-free afterwards. They also completed a wide variety of projects supporting Obubu’s operations, from creating study materials to cafe menus, audio guides and more.
Read all about their work on our blog, or learn about each intern’s journey on their individual feature pages!
Welcome New Assistant Managers!
We’re excited to round out the Assistant Manager team with our next group, who will be shepherding Obubu into 2027! In this team, we’re delighted to welcome back a few previous interns, in addition to some brilliant folks new to Obubu. Over the course of the month, our new AMs have completed their training and already begun to shine in their new roles. We can’t wait to see what they accomplish over the next 11 months!
Meet the team: Katy (previous intern #217 from UK/Thailand), Kenji (previous intern #218 from Japan/US), Lotte (previous intern #215 from Belgium), Arthur (from Brazil), Gia (from the Philippines), Allison (from Taiwan), and Vyhnal (from the US).
Seasonal Tea Field Roundup
As summer transitions into autumn, our tea fields are seeing a few seasonal changes – mainly the presence of tea flowers! Even though we don’t want them growing in our productive fields because they take the tea plant’s energy away from leaf production, it’s still wonderful to see these beautiful flowers popping up along non-productive fields during the autumn season.
Accompanying the tea flowers are higanbana, the Japanese red spider lily. These stunning flowers are now blooming along the borders of rice fields where they act as pest protection.
Meanwhile, our Somada landslide cleanup efforts have continued. Last month, Akky-san restored our access road, and we were able to recover most of the shading nets caught in the landslide. A few rainy cleaning sessions later, these are washed, restored and ready for continued use in spring!
Stay connected
Want to receive these monthly updates directly to your email?
Our email newsletter is sent once a month, sharing an inside look into news and happenings at Obubu. You’ll also get Tea Club updates and a few specials like photo of the month, tea guessing games, and fun facts exclusive to the email newsletter!