Obubu Tea Farm

Perhaps the most out-of-the-way place on our Japan itinerary is Obubu Tea Farm, about an hour outside of Kyoto in the hilly farm area known as Wazuka, where much of the world’s fine matcha tea is grown, harvested and processed. Two trains and a bus were required to get there, but it was definitely worth the schlep. Think of it like wine country, but for tea. So here’s what we learned:

Because of its geography and climate, Wazuka is very well suited to growing tea, and farmers have been doing so in these hills for hundreds of years. Much as with wine, many cultivars (types) of teas are planted here and, when pruned, grow in beautiful, green lines of bushes that make for stunning scenery.

Also similar to wine, tea plants must grow for several years before the leaves can be harvested. Only the fresh, young leaves are harvested each year in spring for the finest teas. The summer harvest makes for a more robust tea flavor, and fall harvest teas are generally used for cooking rather than drinking. Tea plants can be harvested for 50 or 60 years, with some of the old plants as prized as old grape vines.

Once the leaves are picked, they must be processed within hours. For green tea, leaves are steamed to retain color and flavor and stop the oxidation process. Obubu grows and processes its tea on site to make sencha green tea primarily. It’s a small operation that relies on international interns to help and learn every step of the process. 

The interns taught us all about the farm and its operations. They also served us many, many varieties of tea, including one cup of cold-brewed tea that we drank on the hillside next to the tea plants.

The arc-shaped machine is used to cut the leaves, which are blown into a collection bag.

Then the tea is steamed, rolled and dried before packaging. Some of the tea is single-farm and sold directly by Obubu, while other harvests are sold to outside companies that blend teas from various farms to make their own products.

Our tour included a tasty vegetarian lunch, with a tiny salad made of tea with dried crispy rice with soy sauce. We learned that the taste of the tea depends on the cultivar, time of harvest, weather, brewing time and temperature. Hannah’s favorite tea was a young sencha picked in springtime. Not surprisingly, I loved the matcha tea as well as the genmaicha, which is made with tea and roasted rice. Go to obubutea.com if you’d like to learn more, and visit the farm if you can. We had a great time!

The fun and the fantastical

Dear me, I didn’t know I’d show up on this blog! I’m one of some 1200 deer that wander the streets and parks of Nara, Japan. I love people, especially the ones who buy and feed me crackers. I’ll be your tour guide for today. 

Check out this video of Hannah and me: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq-JpQRJg98

Deer aren’t the only reason to come to Nara. It’s a really ancient city, dating back to the 7th century, and served as Japan’s first capital city and the seat of our first Emperor from 710-794. Nara Buddhism was incorporated into the national government at that time, so there are many ancient temples in Nara. Even today, it is the center of Buddhist study in Japan.

This is Todai-ji Temple. It may look small here, but its one of the largest wooden structures in the world. 

Those of you who hold numbers dear, note that the front of the temple is 187 feet long, and its height is 160 feet high — almost a 12-story building. The gold fish tails at the top are said to protect the temple from harm, but in all honesty, it’s burned and had to be rebuilt twice over the centuries so I’m rather skeptical of all that magical thinking.

The temple is guarded by huge Nio statues, or Guardians of the Faith. Scary, huh?

The primary Buddha inside the Great Buddha Hall is one of the largest bronze Buddhas in the world. Again, you can’t tell from the photo, so just imagine:

He’s nearly 50 feet high

His head is 18 feet tall

His ear is 8 feet tall

And his nostril is big enough for a child or a small adult to crawl through.

These guys are as impressive as they are gigantic.

Hannah and Lauren visited some serene Japanese gardens today, too, but blah, blah, blah… 

I’d rather show you these insane guys beating the crap out of mochi: Click the link below.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=m417xPr5_rA

               The result: a warm, delicious mochi treat filled with red bean paste and coated in some sort of sweet peanut dust. Sounds weird but people like that sort of thing. Different strokes for different folks.

And if mochi pounding isn’t odd enough, you could order sushi on a touch-screen…

Ah, Japan, we love you!

Time for Tea (and champagne)

Kyoto is all about tradition, and if there’s one activity that’s perhaps the most traditional of all in Japan, it’s the tea ceremony. Hannah and I learned to formally participate in a tea service at the home of a Kyoto tea instructor who taught us how to bow, carry a fan (unopened), sit, greet our hostess, apologize for taking tea first (or before the host), slurp the final mouthful of tea, and finally, to make tea in the formal way that it’s been done here for centuries. Check out our video here: https://youtu.be/n4-rCj2D388

The afternoon and evening were filled with more food experiences and a picturesque stroll by the Kamogaro River and Takase-gawa Canal. The river flows south to Fushimi.

The shallow canal was dug around 1614 for flat-bottomed boats to carry cargo from Osaka and other cities to Fushimi. More than 100 boats once operated along the canal contributing to the economic prosperity of Kyoto. Today it’s lined with cherry trees, shops and restaurants.

Food/resting stops at various points during the day and evening included:

Nishiki Market

(John, this one’s for you. It’s a stall that sells hot sauce and other chili products.)

Cafe de K, a French wine bar, for a celebratory glass of Ca’del Bosco champagne…

And selections from an array of French cheeses (a much appreciated break from rice, fish & miso)

Finally, after a long wait to get in, we ate the BEST award-winning gyoza in the city at Chao Chao, which included chocolate gyoza for dessert!

 

Arishiyama & Kyoto

Once again, Japan has enthralled us. It’s Day Whatever, and we’re in Kyoto, a smaller city than Tokyo and one that is much older, its origins dating back to the Sixth Century. Our first full day here took us to an area outside of the main city called Arishiyama where we stepped into the magical bamboo forest. It’s hard to describe and the photos don’t do it justice. There is a certain sound in there as the bamboo leaves high above your head rustle in the wind.

We continued through the bamboo into an arboretum/garden area that overlooks the Oi River. The garden in the Tenryuji Zen Buddhist Temple (a UNSECO site built in 1339!) is also absolutely gorgeous with koi ponds, and cherry trees blooming everywhere, as are rhododendron and other spring flowers

At the temple, we indulged ourselves in a gourmet vegetarian meal at Shigetsu. Mostly, we had no idea what we were eating, but I did recognize a variety of mushrooms, eggplant, mochi, fiddlehead fern, taro and goma tofu, which is the white square. It’s not soy-based, but made of sesame paste and kudzu and it a specialty of the Wakayama region. 

In case you were wondering, the meal was apparently prepared by monks, but it’s not what they eat every day, which is more of a bland diet of a bowl of rice gruel, a salted plum and pickled radishes for breakfast, a bowl of barley rice, soup and a simple cooked vegetable for lunch and leftovers for dinner.

A final activity to highlight from Arishiyama was a boat ride on the Oi River, guided by a man using a bamboo pole much like the gondoliers use in Venice. The mountains on both sides of the river abounded with cherry trees, and everyone was out enjoying the spring sunshine.

Life is good.

And it just keeps getting better…

Spent this morning in now sunny Kiso and learned a little more about the history of the town. When the samurai and other travelers were on the road and proceeding through these post towns, they had to check in with a passport office that would permit them passage to their next destination. Travel by women was particularly controlled — they had to have special permission or they would be sent back home (apparently they frequently ran away from their husbands). 

We visited the old passport office in Kiso and saw the rooms where these travelers were processed. Also on display was a variety of weaponry (swords, guns and other scary metal and wooden objects) and travel documents.

From the passport office, we walked several of the old stone alleys and roads that have survived centuries of footsteps. Along the way, we stopped to soak our feet in one of the many public foot-baths that are common in Japan. Just take off your shoes and socks, open the wooden lid, sit down and put your feet into the hot water.

This is a lovely shop with gorgeous woodcrafts where we stopped for a morning “cake set” — a choice of drink and a slice of cake. We both had lattes, and I ate the best matcha chiffon on the planet. We also bought some train snacks at a different bakery that is said to be the home of the original Japanese milk bread. Original or not, the buns were excellent.

Here we are just after checking out of our ryokan and before boarding the train. And below is the bullet train that we took from Nagoya to Kyoto — a distance that would have taken 2 hours by car that we covered in 30 minutes at 300 miles per hour. Hannah noted that riding the bullet train is so smooth and so fast that it feels closer to flying on a jet than riding on a rail.

This last set of pix are from our first evening in Kyoto, in a part of town called Gion. Here, we attended an “Illumination” of the Chion-In Temple, gardens and cherry trees. The temple is tremendously large, as it is the head temple of the Jodo sect of Buddhism, one of the most popular in Japan with millions of followers. The illumination may have been one of the most beautiful visions I have ever seen. Although no photos were allowed inside, we attended a brief worship service, too. Of course, we didn’t understand any of the sermon, but I found the incense, the chanting and the drumming on the wooden fish-shaped drum called a mokugyo to be mesmerizing. It was an honor to be allowed to participate. Hannah thought the service was boring but her excellent photography nonetheless displayed an appreciation for the beauty and elegance of the experience.