Tea
The tea ceremony isn’t really about the tea. It’s about making a moment—quiet, deliberate, slightly strange in its slowness. Everything means something: the bowl, the silence, the way the water’s poured. It’s not about performance, it’s about presence. You sit, you sip, and for a minute, the world stops trying so hard to be anything else. It’s just a cup of tea. And somehow, that’s enough.
Get the experience without having to sit seiza
Yakumo Saryo teahouse epitomises zen aesthetics and focuses on enjoying tea with all five senses. Yakumo Saryo consists of a restaurant and a tea room. It’s in a residential Meguro neighborhood, set back from the street, and it boasts a garden of plum trees, which you can gaze at through a perfectly placed window in the tea room. Breakfast here is called Asacha and centers around tea, you can have lunch depending on their calendar. Dinner’s invitation-only, like a secret passed in a whisper. Booking here is a little bit tricky, I have had more luck securing a place when I email directly to the contact.
Sakurai Tea Experience is a minimalist enclave of dark wood and copper. You sit at an L shaped counter while a tea master will orchestrate a modern tea course. The tasting course unfolds through a series of teas—perhaps a gyokuro, its umami deepened through multiple infusions, or a freshly roasted hojicha, its smoky aroma curling through the air. If you drink alcohol, the cocktail infusions are fun. If they are offering a special seasonal course that involved frothing of tea, highly recommend that you go for it.
When you want the tatami, calligraphy, ikebana, kimonos, and the whole shebang
Chazen in Asakusa offers a straightforward introduction to the Japanese tea ceremony. The setting is simple and welcoming, includes a brief overview of the ceremony's history, a demonstration by the host, and an opportunity for guests to prepare matcha themselves. Traditional Japanese sweets accompany the tea, providing a balanced contrast to its flavor. Sessions are conducted in English. The matcha they use is very pleasant, doesn’t have too much bitterness.
Chinzanso in the tea ceremony happens inside Zangetsu, a quiet tea house within the expansive, gorgeous garden. The ritual is formal but not stiff—an hour of calm movements, warm bowls, and soft silences. It runs on weekdays, needs booking ahead.
Kakiden, I have only been here for the lunch Kaiseki, and remember this place specializing in tea ceremony. Unclear just how this takes place, seems like guests can partake in chakaiseki, a traditional meal that precedes the tea ceremony, and it also offers tea ceremony sessions and kaiseki manner classes, providing a comprehensive cultural experience.
Tea without the tea master
Kagurazaka Saryo, tucked behind the narrow streets, it’s part teahouse, part quiet escape. Inside, it’s all warm wood and soft light, with matcha parfaits and Mont Blancs, quite a nice matcha s’more! You can get a proper meal too—twelve little seasonal dishes obanzai. Nice tea experience.
Ippodo is a great place to buy tea, and has a small café inside its Shin-Marunouchi shop. You can sit or take your tea to go—matcha, gyokuro, sencha, hojicha, all made fresh. The space is calm, almost careful, with a few sweets if you want something to go with your cup.
Saboe is a tea specialty store, offers a curated selection of ten unique blended teas as well as confections. Visitors can sample the different blends at the in-store tea counter, enjoy a cup (there is no seating though).
Rakuzan a great tea shop, unassuming and familiar. Inside there are shelves of tea canisters, matcha bowls, the occasional bamboo whisk. The staff is friendly, will sometimes hand you a sample tea to taste.
Tea cocktails
Mixology Salon, an intimate space within the large honking Ginza Six, a bar where tea and spirits intertwine, crafting 'teatails' that are both familiar and unexpected. One of the few places where the tea actually makes sense in the drinks, the cocktails are well balanced where the drink gives new expression to the tea itself i.e., Gyokuro Martini where the green's subtle sweetness meets the crispness of vodka, or a Hojicha Old Fashioned that smokes in all the right ways.
Coffee
Kissaten
Kissaten are the old souls of Tokyo’s café scene—part coffee shop, part time capsule. Back in the day, kissaten weren’t just cafés. In post-war Japan, they gave people somewhere to go that was neither home nor work, an unofficial third space before the term even existed. During the Showa era, they became unofficial salons for thinkers, loners, artists, and students. The smell of dark roast and cigarette smoke linger, even when no one’s smoking. There is a certain aesthetic too, dim lights, the booth upholstery cracked just enough, a jazz record or syrupy pop ballad playing low in the background. While Tokyo’s filled now with pour-over rituals and gleaming cafes that resemble laboratories, kissaten remain. Still holding space for a coffee culture that doesn’t need to be trendy. I wouldn’t go out of my way for kissaten, but if I find myself in a neighborhood with extra time, I will seek one out. Some ones of note: Chatei Hatou (Shibuya), Tajimaya (Shinjuku), Cafe de l'ambre (Ginza), Cafe Lapin (Ueno), Seibu (Shinjuku), Ken’s (Ginza)
If it’s on offer, be sure to try the coffee jelly, slightly bitter, softly wobbly, and just sweet enough to feel indulgent, summer nostalgia and adult restraint in the same spoonful, lingering somewhere between dessert and daydream.
Finding good coffee
It’s not hard to do. The city’s full of shops that brew cups with obsessive precision. Here are a few places where you can buy beans and get that perfect hand-dripped cup of coffee: Mameya, Yanaka Coffee (beans only), Horiguchi Coffee (beans only), Switch, Nem, City, Coffee Wrights, Verve, Onibus
Coffee Town
A vibrant hub for coffee enthusiasts, Kiyosumi Shirakawa used to be warehouses and quiet streets until a few roasters moved in. Blue Bottle opened in 2015, and things shifted. Now it’s a cluster of good coffee, all within walking distance, each shop doing its own thing. It still feels low-key, but the beans are serious.
Kakigori & Fruit Parlors
Shaved Ice
You can call it shaved ice but it’s more than that. Like ice cream, but without the density or weight, nor the guilt (so I like to believe). Here are some places of note:
Kurogi a sleek kakigori shop by kaiseki chef Jun Kurogi who has elevated shaved ice to something much much more. It is deceptively simple, the chef has done something with the ice so that within a single bowl there are varying degrees of textures. Regular offerings include roasted soybean (kinako) and rich brown sugar syrup (kuromitsu) with rich soy cream, or black bean but the seasonal specials are the real draw. Mikan, strawberry, purple sweet potato, or chestnut, for examples are delights, but so are the more unusual choices, such as edamame cream, or brie cheese. Kurogi has a special place in my heart. Be prepared to wait (about 30 min to 3 hours). There used to be a ticketing system so you don’t have to be there to queue, but the last time I had done they seem to have disabled that system.
Azuki to Kouri a seven-seat dessert bar where pastry chef Miho Horio, formerly of Florilège, builds each bowl like a sculpture: layers of syrup, fruit, cream, maybe a jelly or a citrusy foam that disappears too fast. Seasonal ingredients come and go—figs, yuzu, strawberries in June—all maybe a little too fancy. Difficult to get a seat here, but worth it to try.
Kooriya Peace is the kind of place you find by accident and then start pretending you discovered. The ice is soft, piled high and dressed with seasonal fruit, housemade syrups, and the occasional curveball—lavender milk, hojicha caramel, yuzu jelly. Nothing feels overworked.
Sakurasaku is less fancy than the shops above. It doesn’t try to be clever. It’s figured out yogurt and fruit were pretty great and went with it. Their kakigori isn’t flashy, just finely shaved ice, a tangy yogurt base, and fresh fruit. Really good stuff.
Himitsudo is a small shop in Yanaka that still uses an old-fashioned, hand-cranked machine to shave the ice, which is then topped with one of 132 rotating, seasonal flavors—pumpkin cream and mango-yogurt among them. The menu changes daily, so each visit offers something new. Be prepared for a wait, especially in summer, as the place draws a crowd.
Fruit & Cream
Boy do I love a fruit parlor! Such a joyous expression of fruit served at peak sweetness. Picture perfect parfaits are layered like a dream, sponge, cream, syrup, fruit, repeat. Luxury in a sundae glass. Also, love its little sister: the fruit sandwich!