Senchado Tokyo (煎茶堂東京)

Senchado Tokyo opened in Ginza in 2017, started by two founders from outside the tea trade, an entrepreneur and a designer. The shop sits on the ground floor of the Ginza Marushima Building at 5-10-10 Ginza, two minutes from exit A5 of Ginza station. It opens 11:00 to 19:00 every day of the year except the New Year holidays. At the counter there are tastings, 4 g single-cup packs of each tea and gift wrapping, and the shop's own transparent teapot sits among the artisan teaware.

The senchas are numbered and named by cultivar and region: 001 is Harumoegi from Kagoshima, and the list runs past 070. Beside them the shelf holds a Kyoto gyokuro, an Okumidori matcha from Fukuoka and a Kochi genmaicha. There is also a stem hojicha from Shizuoka Yabukita leaf, a Si Ji Chun oolong and a Japanese black tea from the Koshun cultivar. The sachet is the entry to all of it: the sencha and the black tea both come as one cup before they come as 30 g.

The sister tea room is Tokyo Saryo at 1-34-15 Kamiuma in Setagaya, seven minutes from the south exit B of Sangenjaya station. The house calls it the world's first hand-drip Japanese tea shop; it opens on irregular days, so the reservation page is the thing to read first. The menu is short: one sencha with a sweet, or a tasting of two. Online, orders ship nationwide for a flat fee, free above ¥6,000, and leave the same day when placed before 11:30; there is also a monthly subscription called Tokyo Tea Journal.