Nakamura Tokichi

Rating: ⁸⁵⁄₁₀₀ pts
Nakamura Tokichi is undoubtedly one of the most famous and venerated tea shops in Uji. There are several locations sprinkled around Japan, but this Uji location is in fact the original location, having originally opened in 1854.
The shop’s façade looks like it’s been largely unchanged since then, with its wooden planks and wind-​worn noren. The atmosphere continues inside, where there’s a gift area for buying their famous green tea and packaged sweets to take home.
If you’re in the mood for stopping for a sweet treat, continue toward the back to the café section. The interior is comfortable, but if the weather is moderate, the real treat here is enjoying a snack on the patio terrace while peering into their Japanese garden with over 150 years of history.
The menu remains reasonably priced despite the shop’s history, and features a slew of Japanese sweets that incorporate tea. The green tea parfait comes with matcha ice cream, shiratama mochi balls, red bean paste, and squares of green tea jellies. Served in a circular wrung of bamboo, I was surprised to find the sweets going down, down, and down into the dish, rather than ending prematurely. This was enough to be shared by two. (However, they do insist that each person orders something.)
This is also a great place to buy green tea leaves for making Uji tea at home.
**Don’t speak Japanese? No problem.**
There seemed to be a lot of foreign visitors when I was here, and they have multilingual menus.

Resto à deux minutes de la gare spécialisé dans le thé vert.
Il propose notamment des sets c’est à dire un plateau composé avec riz, dessert et plats pour un peu plus de 1000¥.
J’ai donc pu essayer des pâtes au matcha, pas mal même si l’ensemble est un peu fade. Le dessert est une petite gêlée avec de l’haricot rouge sucré.
Pour être placé il faut mettre son nom sur une liste d’attente, coup de chance on a attendu que quelques minutes.
Il y a une boutique à l’entrée mais assez chère et on né peut rien goûter.
Aller plutôt faire vos achats dans la rue du Temple.

One of the more interesting and memorable meals: macha noodles in an ethereal broth, one order with puffed rice, the other with sweet tofu skin. Macha jelly, a mochi ball and adzuki paste for dessert. Very pretty and serene courtyard setting. Uji, too, is well worth the short trip from Kyoto.

First, the dessert is 5 stars. The matcha jelly lives up to expectations. It really does just melt in your mouth.
Second, the kitsune matcha udon is so-​so. It’s more 3.5 stars. The kitsune /​tofu was sweet but thinner than I’d like. The noodles had a mild matcha flavour. I generally would prefer a stronger matcha flavour because the one at this shop doesn’t really stand out.
The teas were fantastic, however. The matcha jelly came with the cheaper matcha but it was really potent and delicious. The kitsune udon came with the Nakamura tea set along with a set of instructions in English. This too was a solid green non-​matcha tea.
All in all, the matcha jelly was amazing. The noodles… Not as much.

I prefer Japanese red bean or macha sweet to Western confectionary. But among Japanese sweets some are not yummy, red bean paste is dry or rice cake is hard… which doesn’t meet my satisfaction.
This Japanese sweet café is awesome! As a would-​be gourmet, I do recommend you to have macha jerry here. Portion and cost performance has no problem! If you come here, you will never go to Gion or Kawaramachi area to have Japanese sweet for which you have to pay almost double!
If you get on a bullet train called Shinkansen, you will purchase the one at a large souvenir shop inside Kyoto station. But it is simplified one, so you should bother to come to Uji, one of the major tea production centers in Japan to have this special sweet.
The shop has a time-​honored history, date back to the Edo period. If you look at the café, you will take it for a magnificent and tasteful private old house. But at the entrance, cotton curtain called Noren with the one character of the shop’s name 十 is hanged, you will realize you are in the café. You can enjoy seeing an elaborate Japanese garden, smelling the aroma of fresh macha, and tasting the café’s No.1 hit, macha jerry… First you are surprised at the jerry arranged in a bamboo ware, moist bean jam, macha ice cream, sticky dumpling harmonize with wobbly rich flavored green tea jelly. It is unbelievable with around 700 yen. Though I always order powdered green tea jelly, I will try it with roasted tea jelly next time.

The green tea jelly is the best here! It melts in your mouth as soon as you eat it. It’s not too sweet nor bitter, the perfect taste for green tea jelly.
Also the café of the Nakamura Tokichi’s main store has a nice historical atmosphere as it was built more than 150 years ago. Many master of tea, and the head of the school family for tea has been using the tea from this shop.