“Sipdown 37 – 2024 Didd not expect how reddish brown this steep would be, considering how green the dry leaf is. This smells so unique – spinachy, but also really floral (like lilac). Super umami...” Read full tasting note
“Sipdown! (65 | 339) So I had a batch of Oolong Needles from Obubu previously, but I remember that one mostly just looking and tasting like a sencha, and this one definitely does not! It steeps up...” Read full tasting note
Medium-bodied with a rounded texture, our Oolong Needle has a fragrant aroma with a complex taste. With a rich taste, slight bitterness, and a deeper flavour it is left unroasted, one would be able to taste the fresh acidity in every cup. The production of Oolong Needle tea, involves light steaming, rolling, and drying. Compared to traditional Oolong tea, it is uniquely rolled into a needle-shape in the same manner as Japanese Sencha.
Taste: Balanced
Body: Deep-Medium
Texture: Round
Length: Long
Harvest: May
Tea Cultivar: Yabukita
Origin: Wazuka
Cultivation: Unshaded
Processing: Lightly Steamed, Rolled, Dried
It started with a single cup of tea. As the legend goes, our president Akihiro Kita, or Akky-san, visited Wazuka, Kyoto one fateful day. At the time, Akky-san was still a college student in search for life's calling. After trying the region's famous Ujicha (literally meaning tea from the Uji district), he immediately fell in love and his passion for green tea was born. He had finally found what he was looking for in that one simple cup of tea. After fifteen years of learning to master the art of growing tea from tea farmers in Wazuka, Kyoto Obubu Tea Farms was born and as they say, the rest is history. So what's an Obubu? Obubu is the Kyoto slang for tea. Here in the international department we call ourselves Obubu Tea. That's "Tea Tea" for the bilinguals. We love tea so much, we just had to have it twice in our name. Now Obubu means more than just tea to us. It means, family, friends, passion and the place we call home. More than just tea. Though the roots of Obubu stem from tea, it has become more than that over the years. Obubu is an agricultural social venture, operating with three (1) bring quality Japanese tea to the world (2) contribute to the local and global community through tea (3) revitalize interest in tea and agriculture through education.