Tea shops · Tokyo, Japan
Tea shops · Tokyo, JapanIppodo Tea (一保堂茶舗)
The Tokyo shops of a Kyoto tea merchant of 1717: a tea room in Minami-Aoyama and a counter under the Shin-Marunouchi Building.
The grades have names, not numbers: Nichigetsu, Hosen, Mantoku. In Aoyama there are 21 seats where you can drink one before choosing a bag.
Ippodo began in Kyoto in 1717, when Watanabe Rihei opened a shop called Omiya, and it is still a Kyoto house at heart. Its Tokyo home is on the second floor of 4-23-6 Minami-Aoyama, eight minutes on foot from exit A5 of Omotesando station. The shop shares the floor with a 21-seat tea room that takes reservations; both open 10:00 to 18:00 and close on Mondays. It is the one Tokyo address where the house pours its own teas at a table.
Two more counters are downtown. One sits in the basement of the Shin-Marunouchi Building, two minutes from Tokyo station, open 11:00 to 21:00 and closed only on 1 January. The other is a takeout counter inside Isetan Shinjuku. The range is the house's own grades: sencha Nichigetsu and Hosen, the stem tea Karigane, gyokuro Mantoku, the matchas Wakaki Shiro and Ikuyo no Mukashi, and Kyoto's smoky iribancha. Each tea comes in a bag, a small tin or a gift tin.
Most of the leaf is sold in 80 g bags, with gyokuro in 50 g and matcha in 20 g boxes, which keeps a first order small. The house also teaches: brewing classes run at the Aoyama shop and at its Kojimachi room, with tickets sold through the online shop. The result is a Kyoto house that, in Tokyo, would rather show you how to brew its tea than simply sell it to you.
- prices
- 7
- tea types
- 2
- from
- ¥ 1,080
- shops
- 2
Where it is
Aoyama shop and tea room
2F, 4-23-6 Minami-Aoyama, Minato-ku, Tokyo 107-0062 (東京都港区南青山4-23-6 2F)
8 min on foot from Omotesando station, exit A5
Hours: Shop 10:00–18:00 · tea room 10:00–18:00 (last order 17:30) · closed Mondays
Shin-Marunouchi Building
Shin-Marunouchi Building B1, 1-5-1 Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-6590 (東京都千代田区丸の内1-5-1 新丸の内ビル B1階)
2 min from Tokyo station
Hours: 11:00–21:00 (Sundays and holidays 11:00–20:00) · open every day except 1 January
What to buy here
Sencha
Sencha Nichigetsu (煎茶 日月) 80g bag
from ¥ 1,296 · 80 g
The house's entry sencha in an 80 g bag, the grade to start with before deciding whether Hosen is worth the step up.
See our page on this tea →Kukicha
Kuki sencha Sencha Karigane (煎茶雁ヶ音) 80g bag
¥ 1,188 · 80 g
A sencha made from the stems rather than the leaf: lighter, sweeter, and the easiest of the house's greens to brew every day.
See our page on this tea →Matcha
Matcha Wakaki Shiro (抹茶 若き白) 20g box
¥ 1,080 · 20 g
The first rung of the house's matcha ladder, in a 20 g box: enough for a week of practice with the whisk before buying a tin.
See our page on this tea →
The one worth the trip
Iribancha roasted bancha (いり番茶) 150g bag
¥ 1,296 · 150 g
Kyoto's roasted bancha smells of bonfire rather than grass, and none of the other shops on this page sells it. If you have only ever had steamed green tea, this 150 g bag is the one to carry home across the city.
See our page on this tea →All prices
Open a tea to see who else sells it.
| Tea | Type | Price | Size |
|---|---|---|---|
| Matcha Wakaki Shiro (抹茶 若き白) 20g box | Matcha | ¥ 1,080 | 20 g |
| Kuki sencha Sencha Karigane (煎茶雁ヶ音) 80g bag | Green tea | ¥ 1,188 | 80 g |
| Sencha Nichigetsu (煎茶 日月) 80g bag | Green tea | from ¥ 1,296 | 80 g |
| Iribancha roasted bancha (いり番茶) 150g bag | Green tea | ¥ 1,296 | 150 g |
| Matcha Ikuyo no Mukashi (抹茶 幾世の昔) 20g box | Matcha | ¥ 1,512 | 20 g |
| Gyokuro Mantoku (玉露 萬徳) 50g bag | Green tea | from ¥ 1,620 | 50 g |
| Sencha Hosen (煎茶 芳泉) 80g bag | Green tea | from ¥ 1,944 | 80 g |
Teas you can find here
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