Matcha in Uji

The first Nakamura Tokichi founded this shop on the site of the present main store on an auspicious day in the first month of 1854, under the Maruto trade mark, and the building and garden are now recognised as a cultural landscape. This is the house that made matcha jelly a national dish. Namacha Zelly is a silky matcha jelly with Ogura adzuki and shiratama, and the main-store-exclusive Maruto Parfait arrives in a bamboo tube layering that jelly with matcha castella, matcha ice cream and house cream. What distinguishes their sweets from every imitator is that the jelly is barely sweetened, so the bitterness carries all the way through to the last spoon. The tea is stone-milled, and the shop sells the same grades in tins on your way out.

The Uji honten is the one to visit. There is also a Byodoin store in a former riverside inn, self-service since its 2022 refit. The Kyoto, Osaka and Tokyo branches are covered on our other pages.

Tsuen is often called the oldest tea shop in the world, trading here since 1160, and the current building has stood at the foot of Uji Bridge since 1672 — which means you drink matcha in a room older than most countries' constitutions, looking at the river the tea was grown beside. Twenty-four generations of one family have run it. The jō-matcha comes with a sweet of your choosing, and about ninety percent of customers pick the cha-dango, which is Uji's true local snack rather than a tourist invention. Order the cold matcha soba too: it comes with their house hojicha, Ukifune, poured free alongside. This is the most atmospheric cheap matcha in Japan, and the least pretentious entry on this list.

One shop, at the eastern end of Uji Bridge, in a building dating to 1672. Twenty-four generations of the same family.

Uji City built this as a purpose-made tea house to promote Uji tea and spread the practice of chadō, and it is the single best-value formal tea experience in Japan. For ¥1,500 you get a properly performed bowl of usucha in the large room, twenty to thirty minutes, up to ten guests a sitting. The serious order is the koicha and usucha set at ¥4,000: koicha is kneaded with about three times the powder of usucha and one bowl is passed and shared, served in the main tea room, about fifty minutes, maximum four guests. Almost nowhere else lets a visitor experience shared koicha in a real tea room at that price. Cash, card and QR are accepted at the tourist information centre — an older English listing saying cards are not taken is out of date.

A city facility, not a café. Booking and information run through the Uji tourism association. Walk-ins accepted for usucha if there is space; the koicha set must be booked.

Founded in the Tenshō era, between 1573 and 1592, which makes this one of the oldest continuously trading tea houses anywhere. The first Kanbayashi Sannyū worked as one of the Uji tea masters appointed from the end of the Warring States period into the early Edo period, and the present head is the sixteenth generation and a certified sixth-dan judge from the National Tea Judging Championship. Here is the remarkable part: a bowl of freshly ground pure Uji matcha with a sweet starts at ¥605, which makes this the cheapest properly ground Uji matcha of any entry in this guide, poured by a family that has been doing it for four and a half centuries. The Hatsumukashi grades are the ones to ask for — the top one is labelled as having been for shogunal use.

On the Byodoin approach road. Groups up to forty by prior arrangement. Facebook only, no Instagram.

Fukujuen was founded in 1790 and this is its purpose-built teaching facility, which makes it the most useful stop in Uji for anyone who wants to do rather than watch. You grind your own matcha on a stone mill — the point being that a stone mill turns slowly and generates almost no heat, so far less aroma is lost than in a blade grinder, and you can taste the difference against tinned powder immediately. Sessions also cover whisking and tea comparison. The pricing is genuinely accessible for a house of this standing, and because it is built as a workshop rather than a salon there is none of the anxiety a formal tea room can produce. Do this first thing, then drink at the older houses with a much better idea of what you are tasting.

Walk-ins accepted for the hands-on sessions. The sister riverside café Ujichatei is a short walk away at Uji Togawa.

Founded in 1860 by Tsujirihei, who later took the name Tsuji Riyemon and is credited with spreading Uji matcha and Uji gyokuro nationally through the turbulent late Edo and early Meiji years. The tea salon occupies a century-old building on the company's own site, and the setting is the quietest of the major Uji houses — you are away from the Byodoin approach crowds entirely. The matcha is stone-milled in-house and the parfaits are built to show it off, with a rich-tea version that keeps a genuine bitter spine. One caution worth knowing: a ¥8,640 afternoon tea circulates in search results, but that figure comes from a Tokyo hotel collaboration, not this salon.

The Uji main store tea salon, set in a hundred-year-old building. Note this is a different house from Gion Tsujiri, though both descend from the same founder.

Itohkyuemon has traded since 1832 and farms its own gardens, and its Uji honten tea room is the most comfortable and most family-friendly of the major houses. It is also the one most likely to have space when the Byodoin approach is heaving. The Uji matcha parfait is the signature and it is built generously rather than austerely, so this is the entry to bring someone who is not yet convinced by matcha. Prices run from ¥750 to about ¥2,190, which covers everything from a straightforward bowl to a full parfait, and the free parking makes it the practical choice if you have driven. The gift range is the broadest in Uji if you are buying to take home.

The Uji honten tea room, with free parking — useful, because it sits away from the station cluster. Cards, e-money and QR accepted.

Marukyu Koyamaen is the most decorated matcha maker in Japan, growing and milling its own tencha since the Genroku era, between 1688 and 1704, and its top grades are what tea-school practitioners buy by name. Come here not to drink but to understand: the factory tour costs ¥1,000, you are handed a ¥500 shop voucher valid the same day, and you see the milling operation that most matcha writing describes only in the abstract. The Makishima shop carries tour-exclusive limited matcha alongside the full range, plus a gelato-style matcha and hojicha soft serve. Be aware that purchase limits have been in force during the shortage and top grades sell out early in the day.

Not a tea room. This is the factory and matcha shop where tours run; the head office and direct sales shop is separately at Ogura-cho. If you want a bowl poured by this house, that happens at Motoan in Kyoto city.

The best-value stop on the Byodoin approach and the one locals point tourists at. Masuda has been trading since 1912, and its Uji matcha soft serve is the reason to stop — properly made from real Uji powder rather than a flavoured base, and famously prone to selling out in the afternoon. Inside, the full Uji tea drinks menu runs alongside a matcha cappuccino, and the gift shelves are well priced. It is a small operation with none of the theatre of the great houses, which is exactly its appeal: you eat a genuinely good matcha soft serve standing in front of the temple that appears on the ten-yen coin, for a few hundred yen, and then walk on.

A main shop and a separate tea stand a few doors apart, both by the Byodoin gate. Founded 1912.

Horii Shichimeien farms Oku-no-yama, one of the historic Uji gardens, and the garden is far older than the 1879 company that now works it — it has been under tea for roughly 650 years. This is the narrowest sourcing available anywhere in this guide: single garden, single house, stone-milled. There is no café, so the reason to come is to buy tea you cannot get elsewhere and to ask questions. Ask specifically for Narisatono, or for the Oku-no-yama gyokuro, or the Uji-mukashi matcha. They hand out detailed documentation about the garden free at the counter, which is unusual and genuinely worth reading. Prices are high because the tea is scarce, and honestly so.

Retail only, no café, and weekdays only. This is a stop for buying and for talking to the people who grow the tea.

The Kanbayashi family were appointed Uji tea masters under the Tokugawa shogunate and this house, trading since around 1560, is descended from the last of those shogunal tea masters. That lineage is not marketing: the Memorial Hall next to the shop holds the documents and utensils, and ¥200 buys you the best short museum on matcha history anywhere in Japan. Buy leaf and matcha at the direct shop first — ask for the gyokuro line and work through the matcha grades — then go next door. The family also has a modern commercial life supplying blends for a nationally sold bottled tea, which makes their sencha and kabusecha interesting to taste against the supermarket product.

Retail shop plus a Memorial Hall next door, admission ¥200. No café here — the family's Kyoto-city presence is a hotel salon and is a different proposition.