Dear Friends and Partners,

As you all know by now, Japan, particularly northern Japan, experienced an unprecedented disaster in the form of a M9.0 earthquake and devastating 10 meter tsunami. The number of casualties is increasing daily, communities have been reduced to nothing, and as I sit here writing this I am listening to streaming news from Japan of a worsening nuclear situation and rising body count.

Kyoto Obubu Tea Plantations itself has not felt the affects of the disaster directly and our friends and family are, thankfully, safe. However, we have approximately 50 dedicated customers in that region whom we are very concerned about. These customers are primarily our Japanese Tea Club members who have supported our effort to bring truly delicious Japanese tea to non-Japanese around the world, and in particular, there are 10 customers whom we have been unable to contact regarding their bi-monthly tea shipment. Many of these customers have been hit hard by recent events and we are hoping beyond hope that we'll be able to contact everyone eventually.

Donations
In the spirit of the Operation Sakura (www.operationsakura.org) theme "Letting hope blossom" (the sakura flowers bloom in just two weeks!), we hope to aid our fellow tea lovers in Japan get through this hard time by raising funds that will help them rebuild their lives, and showing them that tea lovers are a global family!

The donation page is located at http://www.obubutea.com/donate and allows you to "purchase" virtual "Sakura Sencha of Hope" and "Sakura Sencha of Cheer". We hope you will cooperate with us in this small effort to bring hope and cheer from one tea lover to another.

Funds raised thru this effort will go to the following in this order:
1.    Obubu customers directly affected by the disaster
2.    Tea farmers and tea businesses affected by the disaster
3.    If the needs of the above have been met, we will donate the money to the Japanese Red Cross or other effort specifically related to the disaster

How to help
You will also be able to help us out by posting information about this donation effort on your own websites. This code will allow you to paste the above image into you site. Adjust the "width" number to make it smaller or larger.
<a href="/http://www.obubutea.com/donate" target="_blank"><img src="/http://www.obubutea.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/donate-588.jpg" width="250"></a>

Finally, we encourage people to send a message through the form at the bottom of http://www.obubutea.com/donate. Our partner, Matcha Latte Media, will be gathering volunteer translators through Operation Sakura to help translate these messages.

Thank you all very much for your love and support over the past few days.

Best regards,
Ian Chun, Akihiro Kita, Yasuharu Matsumoto, Kaori Matsumoto, Kayo Takeuchi