2025 Matcha Harvest Tour of Japan (Ooika Labs)
Join Ooika in Japan as we visit some of the most important farms and faces behind the Japanese Tea Industry.
Date: A Once in a Lifetime Trip May 12th - May 19th, Japan.
Location: Across Japan.
Join Ooika in Japan as we visit some of the most important farms and faces behind the Japanese Tea Industry.
Date: A Once in a Lifetime Trip May 12th - May 19th, Japan.
Location: Across Japan.
Join Ooika in Japan as we visit some of the most important farms and faces behind the Japanese Tea Industry.
Date: A Once in a Lifetime Trip May 12th - May 19th, Japan.
Location: Across Japan.
About the Matcha Tour of Japan
Matcha is marketed to be mysterious, romantic, and esoteric. Sold with poetic names, and accompanied with photographs of foggy tea hills. foggy photographys of rolling tea hills. All of this helps sell Matcha, but, this doesn’t help you.
Transparency and matter-of-factness doesn’t have the same dark allure. But clarity helps you understand what Matcha really is. Where it’s from. How it’s made. And who are the people behind it.
That’s why Ooika would like to invite you to Ooika’s 2025 Matcha Tour of Japan. You’ll join me as we travel across Japan, demystifying the many secrets of the behind the Japanese tea Industry.
What You’ll Experience
You’ll gain more Matcha knowledge in one week, than years of reading and watching videos. The 2025 Matcha Tour will give you an inside view of the Japanese tea Industry.
Visiting multiple 10th+ generation tea farmers.
Experience Matcha farms, including endangered heritage tea cultivation techniques such as Honzu (reed-straw) shading.
Visiting Matcha production factories.
Deep conversations with producers, and artisans.
Going beyond Matcha with pottery makers, Chasen makers, and more.
Understood, and Remembered.
Joining you on your journey across Japan’s most pristine Matcha terroirs will be:
A professional interpreter, so you’ll understand the full complexity and nuance with all of our conversations.
A highly skilled Photographer who’ll document the entire trip, so you’ll have pictures to share with your friends, family, and on social media to remember the trip and your part in it.
Our Itinerary
Here’s just a few of the activities and places we’ll go throughout the harvest tour of Japan this coming Spring 2025.
Day One:📍Uji, Kyoto, Japan (May 12, 2025)
We’ll meet in Kyoto Japan and head down to Uji, the birth place of Matcha. Here we’ll visit multiple Uji farms – and producers. We’ll spend the day with a 10th generation Uji farmer.
Day Two:📍Uji, Kyoto, Japan (May 13, 2025)
The complexity and important of Uji can not be experienced in one day. Our second visit will include visiting an active Uji tea factory (a co-op used by many prestigious farmers you may have heard of.) We’ll walk down the famous Uji road lined with tea houses see the Uji river, learning the history of the region first hand.
Day Three:📍Wazuka, Kyoto, Japan (May 14, 2025)
Wazuka producers over 50% of all Tencha (unground Matcha) in Kyoto. We’ll visit the farms on the rolling hills of the region, and speak with farmers about what this popular terrier holds.
Day Four:📍Takayama, Nara, Japan (May 15, 2025)
Takayama is the only true origin of the Japanese Chasen, or tea whisk. We’ll be visiting multiple Chasen makers and learning the subtle art of Chasen craftsmanship. You’ll join the families in their homes, and even have an opportunity to carve your own.
Day Five:📍Imbe, Okayama, Japan (May 16, 2025)
Japan has six ancient kilns, each with over a 1,000 years of history. Bizen is the personal favorite of Ooika’s founder, Marc. Bizen pottery is notable for it’s rustic, wabi-sabi unglazed forms. We’ll visit the kilns and studios of multiple highly awarded Bizen artists and get access to a side of Bizen that is invisible to most.
Day Six:📍Fukuoka, Fukuoka, Japan (May 17, 2025)
Our “day off”, to recuperate after many miles traveled, and many stories uncovered. Join us for a group dinner in Fukuoka to experience some of the prefecture’s most delectable seafood.
Day Seven:📍Yame, Fukuoka, Japan (May 18, 2025)
Yame has an over 600 year history of tea production. While mostly known for it’s prestigious Gyokuro, Tencha is also grown here. We’ll visit an old Yame tea-factory turned tea house, farms across Yame, and top it off with a visit to a tea refinery.
Day Seven:📍Hoshino, Fukuoka, Japan (May 19, 2025)
Our trip ends in Hoshinmura, home to some of Japan’s most delicious Gyokuro. Experience the breath-taking views, a local tea museum, and private conversations with one of Japan’s highest awarded tea farmers.
Trip Logistics and Details
Shimpai Shinai (心配しない) means: don’t worry. We’ll take care of the most difficult aspects and logistics of your trip.
What we’ll cover
Your trip feel will cover the following:
Private transportation (Vans & Taxis) to the tea farms.
All Lunches over the eight day period.
Fees & tickets for any experience related to the trip, such as visits to tea houses, museums, related.
Compensation to our interpreter, photographer, and donations to our farms and producers.
What you’ll cover
The Matcha tour tuition fee will not cover the following:
Your hotel & lodgings (expect a budget of about $60 a night.) We’ll be staying in easy to access larger cities, where booking a hotel is easy. Our interpreter will also help with the booking process if you need it.
Your flight to Japan.
Your dinners and breakfasts. (With the exception of two group dinners.)
Your public transportation costs (but we’ll help you get your tickets, so you won’t have to worry.)
An optional outing on our Day Six “day off,” which will not be included in trip fee, and is an additional fee with limited seating.
About Ooika Labs (覆い香の研究会)
Ooika's mission is to preserve heritage Matcha across Japan. For something to be worth preserving, you must first understand and appreciate it. Matcha is often marketed as exotic and mysterious, which can feel overly romantic and pretentious for beginners. Ooika labs’ (覆い香の研究会) approach for Matcha knowledge is contemporary approachable, through hands-on classes, entertaining videos, and clear, engaging content.
There’s a Japanese proverb, “a frog in a well knows nothing of the great sea.” We’ve all heard of Matcha: it’s a bowl of ground tea from Japan.
Yet, is that all it is? Intuitively we know that there must be more. After-all: Ancient monks drank it. Emperors revered it. Today an entire way of life known as Chado (Japanese Tea ceremony) centers around this green powder.
Matcha: An Introduction will unravel the master of Matcha, giving you the tools and knowledge to think like a Matcha connoisseur.
