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: […]
Good morning(*^^*)Ladies and gentlemen, it’s me, Akky!How are you doing?It’s getting warmer these days and the pollen is flying and flying.My nose just won’t stop running today!Well, this time we will continue with the previous re-planting project 😊 I put in the bamboo last time and then backfilled it.From here, we can start replacing the […]
Hello everyone!How are you doing?It’s getting warmer during the daytime these days!Risshun has passed and the tea season is just around the corner😄.This time it’s a planting change! Replanting is not about having dinner together ❗️….Plant again! The first is “the start time”.Due to the old age of the predecessor, Mr. Yabukita ↓. Some of […]
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 […]
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 […]
Today, I interviewed one of the interns, Andre from Indonesia who has been here since Spring to talk about Indonesian tea industry! But first, let me introduce him a little bit! Andre was born and raised in a tea family who runs a tea trading company with a history of over 60 years in Sukabumi,West […]
In May the Spring Harvest is well under way! The terrain is very steep at the top of the mountains, so we will carefully harvest the plants while paying close attention to foot placement! The harvesting machine weighs about 10 kg. As the harvested leaves are blown into bags, the weight of each bag is about […]
DEEP CUT?? Hello and thank you! How is everyone doing? Here in Kyoto it’s so cold in the morning and at night but gets really hot during the daytime. Each year the tea harvesting season starts earlier and earlier – I wonder when this year will start … […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
During tea tours, we are often asked whether there are different types of plants for different teas. Read on for the answer! Tea Cultivars A cultivar is a group of plants that have been bred by farmers for desirable characteristics. Cultivars can be more or less suited to weather conditions (frost hardy or early […]
As we’ve seen in the “What’s in a Name?” blog series, Japan is famous for producing green tea in great variety. There’s sencha, tencha, matcha, gyokuro, kukicha, bancha, genmaicha, and houjicha. These have been central to Japanese production for hundreds of years. However, if we look beyond green tea, there is even more delicious tea to […]
Today’s post is about organic tea. What makes a tea organic? What are the implications for farmers and tea drinkers? Is organic tea better? What does “organic” mean? The term “organic”, referring to farming, came into use in the 1940s, referring to a balanced relationship between plants, soil, and nutrients. However, since the 1960s, the […]