Wazuka Water : The Prime Water Experiment

Over the last several posts we’ve tested four of Obubu’s teas from all over Japan and all over the world. At least as much as one can do with eight waters, but it does illustrate an important fact. Depending on the water used to brew tea, the flavour of the tea can be drastically changed. […]

Solan & Suntory Water Experiments

Hi! The Tea Potato this week! And nothing has caught on fire. We will always consider that a win. The Waters We have something special today for water. No, it’s not the Suntory Natural Mineral Water. Don’t get me wrong, it is a fantastic water. But we’re constantly dealing with Japanese water in these blog […]

Acqua Panna & Kuju’s Water Experiments

Hi! It’s the Tea Potato again and welcome back! Today is a very exciting day for me in terms of water, so we’re going get right to it. The Waters The two waters we have for your tasting pleasure today are Aqua Panna, a natural mineral water from Tuscany, Italy and Aso Kuju’s Natural Mineral […]

Crystal Geyser & O.S. 99 Experiments

Intern Tea Potato here with even more water experiments!   The Waters The two waters we’ll be experimenting with this week are Crystal Geyser and Onsen Sui 99. Crystal Geyser comes from the United States of America. There are several different springs from where the water is sourced, so it’s important to check the bottle […]

Sencha, Houjicha, Wakoucha, and Matcha

Mt. Fuji and Evian Tea Experiments

Hello hello hello! Tea Intern, the Tea Potato, here! We’re going to start a really fun and interesting journey today.  It involves *SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS* With water!  … Wait! Don’t go! I swear, this will be really fun. Water makes up more than 99% of tea.  If you’ve ever tasted a water that was awful, it […]

Spring Teas Are Here!

Hachijyu Hachiya symbolizes the 88 nights of spring and marks the beginning of the spring tea harvest, also known as Shincha. While the date fell officially on May 2nd, this year’s harvest came early — on April 26, to be exact. In fact, it was the earliest that Akky-san had ever harvested in his entire […]

Volunteer Event – Kanagawa Cherry Blossom Project

The best cherry blossom production area in Japan: Hadano, Kanagawa Prefecture A project to pick cherry blossoms and leaves, make tea and deliver them to the world. We are looking for support volunteers! You think cherry blossoms are for watching! Actually, in this volunteer activity, we pick cherry blossoms and leaves! Details: Date and time: […]

What is ‘sustainable agrictulture’ and a new Gyokuro tea field!

Akihiro Kita, the President of Obubu Chaen, has been a tea farmer and processor for about 25 years including his training period. From the emotional encounter with a cup of Kabuse Sencha Tea by experiencing a part-time job at a tea farm in Wazuka,   Introduction to Japanese Tea Akky 16 years ago?! He dropped […]

Summer Tea Hand Picking and Hand Rolling Event 2020

On Saturday, July 11, 2020, Obubu’s “Summer Tea Picking & Handmade Tea Making Experience” was held! Due to the influence of COVID-19 this year, Tea Loves from all over the world participated in the situation that it is difficult to participate from abroad! After the greetings and explanations on how to pick the shoots were […]

Planting a Tea Garden

Today is a sunny day and the staff and the intern all planted baby tea trees. The variety is called Saeakari and it is the first time we are planting this cultivar! This is going to be a gyokuro tea field, so we will set up more shading shelves for this. We are making it […]

A brief summary of Japanese Tea – Carly De La Cruz

This blog post is the creation of one of our amazing previous interns Carly De La Cruz. She came to Wazuka to learn about tea and she delved into the rich history and culture with fervour. It’s always a pleasure to see people so passionate about tea and so keen to learn more about how […]

Autumn Moon Sencha Production Day

  In September last year we started out our Autumn Harvest season with a harvest and production of our Autumn moon sencha. The field we harvested may be recognisable to some of our tea tour guests! We started the day by headed into the fields at 8:00am and made our way through the rows of […]

The 88th Day: Spring tea picking tradition!

Hachijuu-Hachiya, the 88th Day  八十八夜 The 88th day of traditional Japanese calendar, which falls right around May 1st or 2nd, is famous as an important date for farmers, and especially tea farmers. For several hundred years, the 88th day has been considered the best day to start the spring tea harvest. Those tender new shoots […]

What’s in a Name? Part I: Matcha, Tencha, and Sencha

Hello everyone! This week’s post is the first section of a series on Japanese tea names. If you’ve ever been curious why a tea is called by a particular name, this is the post for you!   Tea  茶 Perhaps the most important word on this list is cha, or tea. The Japanese character has its […]

Lahpet Thoke- A Tea Salad from Myanmar

At Obubu, we’re very fond of our tea experiments. Therefore, at every tea tour we all enjoy a beautiful Kabuse Sencha salad. Basically, after brewing Kabuse Sencha three times to extract all the bitterness- Kabuse is a perfect choice for a tea salad, since it is a shaded tea, resulting in softer, sweeter leaves- we […]

Fuel your day with green tea smoothies

‘-Once up- on a time on the planet of tea lovers and there happened to be a cup of fresh Japanese green tea that was, driven by curiosity, eager to widen its horizons with the aim of gaining deeper knowledge of the world of flavors. In order to get inspiration it decided to go on […]

How To Brew Green Tea With Kyusu

A Classical Way Of Brewing Green Tea As stated by the previous article, the use of Houhin and Kyusu is more reliable in bringing out the tea’s potential flavors. Furthermore, it is one of the easier methods to use compared to others. Made in Japan, these teapots are recommended for brewing green tea. Normally, Kyusu is made […]

How to Brew Green Tea With Houhin

A Classical Way Of Brewing Green Tea As stated by the previous article, the use of Houhin and Kyusu is more reliable in bringing out the tea’s potential flavors. Furthermore, it is one of the easier methods to use compared to others. Made in Japan, these teapots are recommended for brewing green tea. This teapot is used […]

How To Brew Green Tea With A Strainer

An Alternative Way Of Brewing Green Tea As the previous article explains that it is more reliable to use traditional Japanese teapots, such as Kyusu and Houhin, to bring out the tea’s full potential flavor, using alternative methods shouldn’t cause too much of a concern. Although the leaves may not open completely, they can still […]