WAZA Japan · Events

Talks & Tastings for Groups

Bring a little of Japan to your company, club or gathering.

WAZA hosts bespoke talks and Japanese tea tastings for cultural events, companies, business networks and private groups – at your venue, boardroom or function, or at WAZA Japan Store at 201 Bree Street, Cape Town. Each session is shaped around your audience and the occasion, drawing on more than two decades of travelling in Japan and working directly with its makers and producers. They can be booked separately or together; many groups enjoy a talk followed by a tea demonstration.

An illustrated talk: Japan up close

Drawn from WAZA's own travels across Japan over twenty-two years, this is a warm, photograph-rich talk about what makes the country such a compelling place – not only Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka, but the rural towns and craft communities where the most memorable encounters often happen.

Themes we draw on include:

• Japan's regional diversity, across a country that stretches more than 3,000 km from north to south
• Craft traditions still woven into contemporary daily life
• Rural Japan and lesser-known places off the usual tourist circuit
• The small cultural customs and details that stay with travellers long after a trip
• Personal encounters with artisans, tea farmers and small workshop communities

For business and professional audiences, we can also draw out Japan as a lens on working culture – long-term thinking, patience in building relationships, kaizen (continuous, incremental improvement) and a deep respect for mastery and craftsmanship. These are not abstract values; they are visible in how Japanese makers and companies work, collaborate and present their goods to the world.

A Japanese tea tasting

An informal, hands-on introduction to Japanese tea, touching on elements of both chado (the matcha ceremony) and senchado (the sencha ceremony). The focus is on how green tea is grown in Japan, how the different teas are prepared, and how they compare in taste.

A typical tasting includes:

• A short introduction to Japanese tea and its history, including how steaming the leaves transformed tea-making
• The key utensils of the tea ceremony, explained and passed around to handle
• Informal demonstrations of preparing both sencha and matcha
• A tasting of around five teas, chosen seasonally, with Japanese sweets
• Handy tips and principles for preparing green tea and matcha at home

Guests can see, smell and taste the differences for themselves, across a selection that might include sencha, matcha, hōjicha, bancha, gyokuro, wakōcha and genmaicha.

How it works

We tailor each session to your group and setting. A talk runs around 45 to 60 minutes and a tasting around 90 minutes, and the two combine comfortably into a single programme. We can welcome you at WAZA Japan Store, or bring everything to your venue. Where it suits the occasion, we can add simple Japanese touches – an ikebana branch, folded origami cranes, a small display of objects to handle – and set up a market table of Japanese goods for guests to browse. Every booking is quoted individually, based on the format, group size and location.

Your host

Botha Kruger is the co-founder and managing director of WAZA. He has travelled in Japan since 2004, building direct relationships with artisans, tea producers and small workshops across the country – the relationships that underpin everything WAZA does.

Botha also works as a strategy consultant, and his interest in organisational design draws him to the business models of master craftspeople, hence his talks blend cultural and socio-economic insight with personal experience. His interest in craftsmanship grew alongside WAZA's expanding range, leading him to become interested in monozukuri - the art, science and craft of making things. His interests are not only how things are made, but also the work culture and ethics around sustainable small business development.

Enquire about a talk or tasting