Curating encounters with craft through tea

Field Notes –

The Earth is dreaming herself into existence, and we are co-creators of this dream. January 21st, 2025 | Chilly and Cool Morning, 10:30 AM JST | Obubu Farms, Wazuka Town

We arrived in Wazuka Town after a short drive from Nara Prefecture, greeted by the quiet beauty of rolling tea fields that have defined this region for centuries. This idyllic town, home to one of Japan’s oldest tea-growing traditions, became our gathering place—a meeting of minds, disciplines, and shared curiosity.

Among us: a branding designer from Yokohama, Japan, a Berkeley trained anthropologist from New York City, a vintage and custom sneaker designer from Singapore, street photographers and a videographer from Kyoto City, and myself, coming from a creative and wholesale agency representing emerging brands. Each of us arrived with our own perspectives and creative idioms, drawn together for a research field trip to experience Wazuka’s living history, to learn from the land and its farmers, and and to encounter and engage with the rituals that have sustained Japanese tea culture for generations.

A farmer, a graphic designer and illustrator, a creative agency director, a streetwear and custom sneaker designer, and a chef all gather in front of Obubu Farm’s offices and shop in Wazuka, Kyoto.

I’m beyond excited to share my journey of building a Japanese tea-inspired brand—one that embodies the same values and work ethos that I have held close throughout my professional working life. Through this, I hope to support the ongoing efforts of tea education and the preservation of multi-generational tea farmers.

Tea has long been a part of my own daily rituals. I love preparing beverages for myself and for my guests, and making tea has gradually become for me a cherished, if quite, practice. The simple, meditative processes involved—the speechless act of boiling water, waiting for it to reach the perfect temperature, pouring, and steeping—offers me modest moments of stillness in a world that often feels chaotic. I’ve come to consider tea preparation as a true luxury, one that I’m deeply grateful for.

In 2022, my curiosity led me deeper into the world of Japanese tea—at the moment, in fact, when I was also immersing myself in ceramic pottery making. While I was already familiar with Chinese Gong Fu tea ceremonies, preparing matcha with a chasen (traditional bamboo whisk) and steeping senchas was entirely new to me. That curiosity eventually led me to an online course with the Global Japanese Tea Association, founded by Simone and Matsu from Obubu Tea Farms in Wazuka, Uji—a serendipitous discovery that has since opened an entirely new, unexpected, and indescribably rewarding chapter in my tea journey, which is to say in my life.

Within the first two hours of my beginner’s course with Anna, who is one of the main teachers from GJTA on Japanese teas, I knew that this was something that I would really get deeply into. There is the history of the origin of tea in Japan, its intertwining with the history of Zen Buddhism and its spiritual legacy for ways of life in Japan; the exploration of the different prefectures, the different types of tea customarily produced there, not to mention the innovations in tea culture and ceremony and in tea agriculture and cultivation unique to each growing region across Japan; the unparalleled sociality of drinking tea and the social forces and dynamics underpinning cultures of tea consumption, service, and ceremony across Japan; the internal economic and environmental dynamics of the Japanese tea industry, it’s positioning relative to global tea tastes and markets, and the broader history of the tea trade that captured my literal thirst for knowledge.

Learning about the small batch drying machinery for sencha processsing

During a solo trip to Kyoto in December 2023, I had the opportunity to attend an in-person course with Simone at the newly minted Japanese Tea School’s outpost in Shimogyo ward, Kyoto city. The classroom setting was a traditional Japanese house with sliding doors made of washi paper. Adorned in delicate Japanese hand made wallpaper, art deco ceilings, and tatami mat floors, the place exudes warm and is inviting from the moment one steps into the entryway. This experience deepened my appreciation not only for the craft of tea but also for the city and region that where Japanese tea culture originated more than 800 years ago. Kyoto, which now produces a quarter of the world’s matcha, felt to me like a living archive of tea history. Beyond the tea itself, I found myself drawn to the world of tea wares and and other craft artifacts that index Japanese practices that have emerged around tea in the centuries after its introduction. Kyoto itself, with its rich concentration of artisans practicing across various mediums and multiple craft traditions, became an endless source of inspiration.

I have since continued learning about Japanese tea through the Global Japanese Tea Association and personal visits to tea houses around the world. And eventually I made the decision to complete my Tea Masters certification in Kyoto City in June 2024. My curiosity, coupled with my search for everyday moments of peace through tea, has led me to something far greater—a whole new way of relating. What I thought would be a temporary escape from my reality instead became a profound lens through which to engage with it, shifting the way I approach life and the subjects I care about.

Despite the vast differences in the worlds we come from and the environments that are familiar to us, I have found more similarities than I expected to between myself and the artisanal cultivators of Japanese teas today. Meeting the Obubu farmers, I saw their craft and creativity reflected in their approach to tea, much like the dedication I’ve witnessed in other creative disciplines. As I listened to their personal stories, I came to respect above all the resilience that is required of them to sustain their worlds of tea today and tomorrow.

"We have to show up regardless of how we feel, as there is only one opportunity to harvest for the entire year."

At that moment, I realized—we are more alike than different in the face of challenges and unpredictable circumstances. Their unwavering commitment to tea inspires me on the deepest register I know.

Matsu and me in the tea feels at Obubu Farms

Midst an ever-changing and fast-moving world, where the chaos often feels overwhelming (at least to me), I’ve had many moments of feeling lost, moments when I seek out natural surroundings and new environs as a reset. Immersing myself in the rhythms of patience and care at the heart of tea farming and tea culture in Japan has offered me a form of respite I didn’t realize I needed.

This transformational series of experiences of tea culture and encounters with tea cultivators in Japan has inspired me to bring in creatives from different disciplines, who work in different fields, and who give form to their own experiences in different mediums—to encourage them to render their encounters with tea farming and culture in Japan through their own lenses, to allow their experiences of tea craft to inform their own craft practices and purviews. My hope, ultimately, is to connect more people in new way to the multi-generational and independent farmers who have, against the odds, managed to upkeep not only the practices and traditions but the spirit and values of tea, which have been and remain so deeply inspiring to me.

— Sabrina Li