2024 December round up
Welcome to the December round-up newsletter. A monthly letter about everything that has happened inside and outside the tea nursery.
A year of tea
December and 2024 come to a close. It has been an intense year, both professionally and personally. So many things have occurred since moving to Wazuka at the end of 2023. The last year has been full of tea, in the fields, while traveling, and through meeting and learning from so many people.
Work in the fields has consisted mainly of trimming, which I have unfortunately mostly missed. This period is usually busy with other kinds of activities, like tea events.
Recent Activity
On the 14th of December, I had the pleasure of going, one more year, to Kamikatsu and participating in their Awabancha festival. The festival took place in the famous recycling center of Kamikatsu, the same as last year. This year, there were one or two stalls less compared with last year, but it translated into a couple more farmers using stalls instead of, for example, a local brewery that brews beer with Awabancha participating, like last year.
I will write a short post about it soon now that I have finally published the Yutakamidori cultivar post and the other about my experience at the National Hand Rolling Competition in November. I bought so much tea again this time, and there were a couple of them that really surprised me. No choice but to buy a few big bags of those, right?
This holiday, I have also traveled back to Europe for some days. I carried with me many teas to give away to friends and old colleagues in Spain. My travel gear for the trip was extremely compact, as I traveled with just a small bag and no checked baggage this time. If you have any fancy travel gear or tips on how to better brew tea while traveling around the globe and want to share them, drop me a message.
What is next
I am always thinking about new projects and posts to write for the blog. Learning is one of my passions, not just tea but about many things. For the blog, I am planning some more cultivar content, of course. There are still so many cultivars to try, study, and share. I still have not decided on the next cultivar. If you have any suggestions, please let me know.
One of the themes for this coming year on the blog will be more opinionated commentary on tea, its industry, and perhaps news. I was afraid to be so vocal on some of my points of view in posts like the one on the current situation of Matcha. Turns out that while I agree and do not agree with many people, it created a meeting point of great conversations with some of you as well as some people in the industry.
Books and other fun stuff
While traveling to Kamikatsu for the Awabancha festival, we did a stop at the Ai no Yakata historical indigo dyeing museum close by Tokushima City. Indigo dyeing has a long tradition in the prefecture, and we could do a short experience dyeing ourselves there. A great place to stop for just a couple of hours if visiting Tokushima Prefecture.
This month, and following a downwards trend of me reading books I have not read much about, tea, except research articles. I have, though, rewatched a great food documentary series while being back in Spain. Omnivore is a documentary series of 8 episodes centered around a few common food items like coffee, salt, and paprika, to name some. I had forgotten how interesting those were; I am glad I rewatched them. The holiday season is a great time to think about our connection of time, place, and tradition to others and food through food.
Looking forward to 2025, to learn, explore, and share. My best wishes and happy new year. Read you soon.
That is it for this month. As always, you can help the blog by sharing this newsletter or any of the blog posts and sharing it with a friend or family member who could enjoy it.