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. […]

Tea Garden Update – I’m working on it!

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 […]

Welcome to Tea Planting!

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 […]

Akky-san’s Autumn Tea Farm Report

Hey, everyone! How are you doing? Autumn is well on the way! Winter will be here before you know it! The cold weather has arrived😱! It’s so cold! It’s cold in the morning and evening, but it’s cold during the day too! The weather was kind of gloomy all day long. We’ve started harvesting the autumn bancha tea! The second harvest season […]

2021 New Tea!

2021 Obubu’s Shincha – New Tea Arrival In the middle of April in 2021, Wazuka town, where our farm is located, had a huge amount of damage from frost. Usually, at this point of the year, tea fields are full of beautiful fresh green new buds just like the photo below. And this is what […]

Hoji-chai Latte Recipe

Hi everyone, it’s been a long time! This is Marie from Obubu! As you already saw in the title of this post, today’s tea recipe is a delicious Hoji-chaï Latte! A lot of you may already know what Chai Tea is, but for people who have never tried this fantastic drink yet, “Chai” or “Masala […]

Genmaicha powder Focaccia

Focaccia is a popular italian flat bread made with wheat flour and olive oil and usually seasoned with herbs such as thyme, rosemary and oregano, or tomato. Here, I made a version with genmaicha ! It turns out that for some reason, I prepare dishes that require some preparation the day before…But as usual, you […]

Tea Storage Tips at Home

Today’s topic is about tea storage! I love tea, but always the flavours decrease before I finish it. I receive high-quality tea as a gifts, but I tend to hesitate to open it because I don’t want the tea taste to become stale before I finish it. You may have felt the same before. I also […]

May’s Spring Harvest 2020

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 […]

An Old Tea Box Revival

Hello everyone! How are you doing? I think there are many people who are having troubles or are having a hard time due to the influence of the new coronavirus. I hope that these things will come to an end quickly. At times like this, everyone is amazed with the power of Japanese tea. For […]

Non-traditional Tea Brewing Methods And Tools I Part I – Brewing With Siphon

By Giedre Trumpiene   Tea has thousands of years of history over which many different forms and brewing techniques have been developed. Interestingly, unusual brewing techniques and tools foreign to our current times can be read about or seen in museums – it is a great testament to the lengths that tea has evolved over time. […]

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 […]

Kayo’s Tea Kitchen

Tea ZUKUSHI dish Today, I taught tea tasting dishes to all intern students. It’s possible to cook and eat tea! The kinds of Tea we will use today: Fresh tea leaf Roasted Tea Tea Powder Brewed tea leaves Tea So please try by all means. Fresh Tea Leaf Tempura Because it isn’t time for the […]

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 Magic of Hojicha

    When asked ‘What is your favourite tea?’, one tea which I find myself drinking every day is Hojicha it’s soothing, robust and always a good choice. I may be bias on my opinion for this tea, however, once you have tasted this tea you will feel the same I have no doubt!   […]

Kai’s Kitchen- Nothing more appetizing than a good appetizer

Kai’s Kitchen Nothing more appetizing than a good appetizer         Hello all! Welcome back to Kai’s Kitchen. This week we kick things off by leaning a bit into the savory side of things. Japanese Tea is very well known for its insane umami flavor. Umami is a word overused and not very well […]

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 […]

Tea Cultivars: All About the Plant!

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 […]

Japanese black tea

Introduction to Wakoucha: Japanese Black Tea

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 […]

What’s in a Name? Part III: Bancha & Hojicha

Are you ready for part 3?! Here come bancha and hojicha!  Bancha  番茶 The character for ban includes the characters for rice and field, and refers to a turn or a number in a series. Bancha is usually translated as coarse or common tea, and is made from mature leaves picked in between the four main harvests […]

What’s in a Name? Part II: Gyokuro & Kukicha

Welcome back to our blog series on tea names! Today, we’ll cover gyokuro and kukicha.   Gyokuro  玉露 Gyokuro, meaning “jewel dew,” conjures up an image of morning dewdrops collected from rare jade, and the tea liquor is a vibrant green color to match. Gyokuro is famous as a luxury tea; it’s harvested just once […]

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 […]

Japanese tea & dessert pairings

Pairings with Japanese tea and desserts exist albeit uncommon. Matcha is a popular choice for many although the variety that Japanese tea could offer is fascinating. One will be surprised how it could pair well with foods such as desserts. Dessert and tea have both their own unique character.  When paired together, it makes one harmonious […]