Spring in Wazuka comes suddenly. Our Sakura trees took what felt like forever to blossom, with trees in nearby Uji and Nara beginning to burst with pink and white weeks before the ones that overhang the river that rushes through Wazuka town.
The cold hung on until early April, and the cool mornings that trickled towards the beginning of May kept us on our toes when heading out for harvesting missions. April did unfortunately bring around a goodbye to our first intern batch, Eva (#187) and Joshua (#188), who helped to welcome us when we arrived in February and March. They were an incredibly special pair and we were so lucky to get to spend as much time with them as we did before we had to say goodbye. Both left their own little legacies behind once they left Obubu, with Eva’s dancing in the factory and Joshua’s Hojicha House wall photo amongst the many tangible and intangible reminders of their time with us. Their departure, just as with the departure of the cherry blossoms Honshu-wide, signalled the arrival of the spring harvest and the spring/summer slot interns that arrived with it.
The spring is an incredibly important time for tea, with our most important harvest occurring from late April. The new buds that peek up through the bushes, after the long dormancy of the winter, are full of sweetness and nutrients. They are also incredibly green and tender, bringing the hills alive with a vibrancy we had not yet conceived.
Our quiet Wazuka town and neighbourhood transformed, almost overnight, with farmers speeding around in their kei tora, harvesting machines and shading rolling in the truck bed. Shading appeared, coating the rolling hills to our south-east in black and white, and the Lawson in town became a battleground at midday, with many farmers (and Obubu members) opting for a konbini run after a long morning in the fields. Tea and electrolyte drinks replaced the blood in our veins and the factories dotted throughout town thrummed with life and the smell of sencha processing.
In the thick of it, our spring harvest felt like a hurricane, a whirlwind of leaves, days spent in the field and cold brews shared amongst the Akky-support and Aoimori (Blue Forest) teams. Our sencha factory here at Obubu became more alive than those of us who had arrived that year had seen it, with processing happening at least once a day, thanks to the daily harvesting efforts of the Aoimori and Akky-support teams. The factory’s candle burned long into the night most days in the spring, with our Akky-san, assistant managers, interns and staff members committed to what George (intern #195) infamously called ‘Our Leaf’. The processing haze gripped all of us, dotted with impromptu (and planned) celebrations and evenings of dancing on the first and second floors of the factory.
One particularly misty day in mid-spring, Sky (#192) and I were joined for Akky-support by one of Obubu’s founders, known familiarly as Matsu-san. Matsu-san was joined by the Gentle Artefacts (GA) team, Sabrina and Gabriel, as well as their camera crew. Obubu has a collaboration with the GA team that was shown at Paris Fashion week in June 2025, which Matsu-san also attended, and the team was taking advertisement footage whilst Sky and I supported Akky-san with the tencha harvest. We were headed to our Somada field, deep into the hills of Wazuka, and the overnight rain had left a layer of mist over the mountains. The field we were harvesting from was a bit of a tricky one, but with good teamwork between the three of us, Akky-san, Sky and I were able to push through and get everything harvested whilst the GA crew got their footage and supported us with unrolling and hefting the harvest bags onto the back of Akky-san’s kei tora. Somada is one road in one road out, as are all tea fields; however, it is quite a tricky field to come and go from without reversing the whole way in or out. At one point in the harvest when I was supporting the harvesting bag, I happened to glance down to watch Matsu-san completing what could have been a fifty-point turn in order to turn around the car he and the GA crew had come to Somada in, followed by the same manoeuvres for the car Sky and I had driven up in. He later let me know how good of a driver I was, which somewhat backfired as I did end up getting the afternoon Akky-support team a little lost heading to Michi-nashi (No Road) field.
Looking back at the spring and all of the memories made and time spent in the fields, factory and with each other – it feels like a far off dream. An incredibly busy and chaotic dream, but a dream all the same. I can only reflect back on those times and people with warmth, and we were so lucky to be supported here at Obubu by two batches of interns. The spring slot, the girl squad ft. George (#195) and the spring/summer slot, the other girl squad ft. KD (#201), have all now departed Obubu (as of when I am finishing writing this blog) and their presence is sorely missed. I hope to bring you tales of our summer and autumn slots when next I speak with you – so please look out for that in the next few months! じゃあね – and take care!
