In 2018, I visited Japan, and had a chance to tour this Tea farm outside of Kyoto Japan. A beautiful place tucked in to a valley and surrounded by tea fields. They make a bunch of tea, and have great English communications. They also have a Internship Program which introduces folks to Growing and Processing Tea. I've been enamored by it since I visited. They have a patronage system where I send them money once a month and once a quarter they send me a bundle of wonderful teas and a high-quality printed update journal with information about the teas in the bundle. One of these days I'll do the internship program or at least their 14 day intensive if they still offer it. This page collects updates about my brewing their tea, and other goings on.
Some Obubu Teas I've Drank
Kyoto Obubu Kabusecha
References
:#+ARCOLOGY_KEY: lionsrear/tea/obubu/kabusecha
Tea from Kyoto Obubu Tea Farm, a shaded sencha green tea. Really great daily drinker tea, one of my favorite yabukita. A cousin to Kyoto Obubu Wind Sencha.
One of Obubu’s highest grade teas, Kabuse Sencha is shaded for two weeks before being harvested in early spring. The liquor is jadegreen in color with a distinctive and intense lingering umami flavor. Kabuse Sencha is vegetal with subtle notes of spinach and a thick mouthfeel. It is illustrative of traditional high quality Japanese teas.
Effects of process
The shading leads to higher theanine and amino acids, deeper umami, more colorful liquor
Harvest
May
Tea Cultivar
Cultivation
Shaded cultivation, Lightly steamed, rolled, dried
Kyoto Obubu Wind Sencha
Linked from
References
:#+ARCOLOGY_KEY: lionsrear/tea/obubu/wind-sencha
Wind brings a moss-like green into the cup, offering a notable aroma of willow bark and wet stone. With a beautifully cloudy liquor, it has a vegetal and gentle umami taste. The mouthfeel is thick and smooth. This tea is shaded from the sun for two weeks before harvest and is made from a traditional Zairai cultivar. A wonderful and mellow tea.
Brewing guide Video: https://youtu.be/dftfnrsuUsM
This is made the same way as Kyoto Obubu Kabusecha but with Zairai 在来 Tea.
Cultivar
Harvest
May
Cultivation
Shaded cultivation, steamed, rolled, dried
Aged for three years
Kyoto Obubu Gushing Brook Sencha
References
A really wonderful Japanese green Tea, one of my favorites. The green tea which we brewed during my 2019 India Trip, it is bright, flavorful and really enjoyable. Kyoto Obubu Tea Farm's best tea in my opinion, I really adore the 2019 harvest.
Sencha of the Gushing Brook is a medium-bodied vibrant spring tea. Bright and sunny in the cup it has some gentle bitterness accompanied by the refreshing fruity notes of cherry and grape. With a smooth and silky finish, it is a really enjoyable spring Sencha.
Harvest
May
Cultivar
Cultivation
unshaded growth, lightly steamed, rolled, dried
Obubu Tea Farms on Instagram: Gushing Brook and Forest Glow Sencha
References
This week we have, not one, but two teas of the week: Sencha of the Forest Glow and Gushing Brook Sencha! Both of these teas were harvested in May of last year using an open field (unshaded) method of cultivation. The only difference between these two teas is the cultivar that they come from. Sencha of the Forest Glow was harvested from a Sayama Kaori tea plant and Gushing Brook Sencha was harvested from a Samidori plant.⠀
Tasting these teas side by side is a fascinating experience. While the Sencha of the Forest Glow has a fruity flavor with lots of bright, grassy notes, Gushing Brook Sencha is calm with a round, silky umami finish. It is amazing how different two teas can be just depending on the cultivar that they come from!⠀
Recently my Tea Practice has been around the Kyoto Obubu Forest Glow Sencha Tea from Kyoto Obubu Tea Farm. During my 2019 India Trip, I drank a similar tea, Kyoto Obubu Gushing Brook Sencha, really beautiful stuff.
I ordered some more Kyoto Obubu Gushing Brook Sencha, I have one more session worth of Kyoto Obubu Forest Glow Sencha, and perhaps some time soon I will brew them together and write about it in my Tea Practice.
I don't think a lot about cultivars, but I have much more fond memories of the Guhing Brook sencha compared to Forest Glow. Maybe I should think more about it. In the abstract, I understand this, but it's not a variable I track in my Tea pages.
Kyoto Obubu Forest Glow Sencha
Linked from
Sencha of the Forest Glow is a high-grade spring tea with glossy dark tea needles. Gifted with some delightful umami taste it has a pleasant fragrance of orange and cinnamon. Naturally sweet and smooth it is a truly wonderful tea.
A Japanese Tea, bright and floral, processed from spring tea. Kyoto Obubu Tea Farm really did well on this.
Here's a review: https://teainspoons.com/2020/01/02/kyoto-obubu-tea-farms-forest-glow/
Cultivar
Processing
Lightly Steamed, Rolled, Dried, unshaded cultivation
Harvest
May
Kyoto Obubu Earth Sencha
:#+ARCOLOGY_KEY: lionsrear/obubu-earth-sencha
Sencha of the Earth is medium-bodied with a smooth quality. It creates a delicate bronze-hued liquor with a hay-like aroma mixed with light notes of chamomile. The taste is decidedly floral with a strong aftertaste evocative of honeysuckles. A perfect spring harvest Tea!
Harvest
May
Tea Cultivar
Processing
Unshaded Cultivation, Lightly Steamed, Rolled, Dried
Kyoto Obubu Brightness Sencha
References
This is a summer-grown Tea from Kyoto Obubu Tea Farm.
Pale yellow in color, Brightness has a floral aroma with gentle tones of elderberry. It is a medium-bodied tea with a subtle umami taste and underlying notes of avocado and apricot. Before its summer harvest, it is shaded from the sun for two weeks which creates a smooth and airy Sencha.
It's very sweet, deep umami, smooth.
Harvest
July
Cultivar
Processing
Shaded for two weeks before harvest, steamed, rolled, dried.
Kyoto Obubu Sencha of the Summer Sun
References
A Sencha Tea from Kyoto Obubu Tea Farm, summer harvested, light and astringent.
Medium-light in body, Summer Sun has a light astringency with gentle kiwi undertones. The liquor is a bold brass yellow with an aroma of moist timber. The lingering aftertaste is floral and sharp. Grown in full sunshine and made from the summer harvest, Summer Sun is a bright July tea.
Harvest
July
Cultivar
Process
Unshaded cultivation, lightly steamed, rolled, dried
Kyoto Obubu Sencha of the Autumn Moon
References
This Tea is quickly becoming one of my favorite Kyoto Obubu Tea Farm teas...
Made from mature Yabukita leaves, Autumn Moon is light-bodied and smooth. Its moon-like yellow liquor is accompanied by a warm cedar aroma. It has a notable astringency and a nutty floral taste reminiscent of pansy and lilac. Harvested at the beginning of autumn, Sencha of the Autumn Moon is unusual even in Japan.
My Writing
NEXT start to rewrite these with my own thoughts about them
This season's Obubu tea club packet is an incredible gift.
Linked from
Every time the season changes, I start to look forward to a package in the mail. The last few weeks I've spent part of each day brewing sencha tea, spring compels me toward that lively freshness. I wrote earlier today describing the flavor of umami as the flavor of life itself, and I do believe this more and more as I zero in on its unique characteristics. Baisao wrote:
: Uji tea has a taste infused : with Nature's own essence : a pity folks on prattle : about its color and scent.
And so with a belly full of sencha and aged puerh after drinking tea with a friend, I picked up my mail and among it was a package from Japan. 'lo!
The journals are bi-lingual now and quite high quality, with information about the tea and the state of the farm and of Wazuka. The postcards are always cute and nice. There was a hand-towel with the town farm map printed on it, too. It's always been a really cool treat over the years since I started drinking Obubu tea to see how the terroire of the fields change and how the teas develop year over year and season over season.
Oh and there was some incredibly nice Gyokuro Tea behind the kyobancha. Seeing them brought tears to my eyes.
150 grams of incredibly special teas, the sort of teas that could only be enjoyed by local aristocrats and ranking officials, delivered halfway around the world just in time for the weather to be perfect for brewing in the shade.
Kyoto Obubu Asanoka Gyokuro, "Single origin Gyokuro made from Asanoka. Well-balanced tea with a clean aroma, gentle sweetness and a delicious flavor".
Kyoto Obubu Okumidori Gyokuro, "With finely rolled leaves, this tea has a powerful and balanced umami profile."
Kyoto Obubu Natural Gyokuro, "Glossy dark green needles with a silky and light umami flavour accompanied by a sweet grassy profile."
The last page of the journal explains the Natural Gyokuro further: they were originally going to bring their new Blue Forest Tea Garden in to the fold as an organic garden but it would take too long to be properly certified, so they decided to only add material to the soil which was taken from the soil, and not bring in external additives at all until it could be certified.
The more I look at these three packets of tea, the more I feel like I simply cannot enjoy these in the quiet solitude of my home, it has to be brewed with others, and I have to brew them well. I feel compelled to share it.
I've been thinking a lot about Sencha lately, right? One of those things I've been chewing on the hardest is how to express the nuances of sencha when I put them in front of people. Setting up a table in a shady part of the park and inviting my friends and the public to brew these wonderful teas with me would be a great experiment and experience. If it goes well enough I might just buy a couple of kilos wholesale and keep the tea flowing.
Obukucha
Archive
2021 New Tea! - Kyoto Obubu Tea Farms
References
Although, this year, Kyoto region had a too strong frost damage to make the tea out of the leaves which had frost affect, we were able to make it in 2019 when there was a gentle frost affect.
I thought the Tea i bought from Kyoto Obubu Tea Farm was from their most recent freeze in april, but it isn't. that's fine. they also talk a bit about their internship program still being on hold
Tea Cultivars: All About the Plant! - Kyoto Obubu Tea Farms
References
From 2017: Kyoto Obubu Tea Farm writes on their blog about the various Japanese Tea Tea Cultivars in use on their farm and throughout contemporary history.
Zairai tea is the native or pre-existing varietals
Yabukita Tea is the most popular Tea Cultivars in Japan
Kyoto Cultivars
Kyoto has some unique Tea Cultivars owing to the area's specific growth of shaded Tea like Matcha and Gyokuro. These are not necessarily registered as cultivars like the others, but they are known in the Kyoto area.
Gokou has a distinct sweet aroma.
the name gokou likely derives from 後光 which means halo or nimbus. It's sweet and creamy, an early spring harvest just after Yabukita
Uji Hikari 宇治ひかり
Uji is a region in Kyoto in which much Tea is grown since the early days, it's the nursery of Japanese tea.
Uji Hikari means "the light of Uji", it's actually the same light Kanji as in Gokou tea.
Samidori 早緑 Tea is an early-harvest green tea cultivar
Chunky Houjicha Cookies - Kyoto Obubu Tea Farms
References
Archive Recipe for cookies from Kyoto Obubu Tea Farm
Non-traditional Tea Brewing Methods And Tools I Part II - Brewing With Chemex - Kyoto Obubu Tea Farms
References
The folks at Kyoto Obubu Tea Farm write about brewing tea in a coffee pour-over setup, primarily a chemex but with different filters. They found that the paper filter brings the longest infusion time but bring out astringency without umami. they had good experience with cloth filters as well, which I guess makes sense given how often folks brew in cloth filter-bags.