Tsujiri Uji Honten 辻利 宇治本店 (Uji, JAPAN) ★★★★☆

We have one unfinished business left in Uji (宇治) and that's a highly anticipated afternoon tea session at one of the two famous hontens on Ujibashi Street (宇治橋通商店街): Tsujiri Uji Honten (辻󠄀利 宇治本店) or Nakamura Tokichi Honten (中村藤吉本店). 

As usual, I was the one tasked with scouting both tea rooms. While I found about a dozen customers waiting at Tsujiri, Nakamura Tokichi had well over 60. It was an easy decision to make.

Founded in 1860, Tsujiri Uji (辻利 宇治) is a long-established Ujicha institution known for its high-quality matcha, delicious matcha-based desserts and souvenirs. For a flagship store, I was expecting it to be more spacious, but instead, it was a rather cramped little space with both the team shop and café bunched together.

Iced matcha with whipped cream (770 yen) – On a scorching 37-degree summer afternoon, sitting on the outdoor terrace, a frosty glass of matcha was exactly what I needed! The deep matcha flavors were incredibly satisfying, though I was left wishing the glass had been a bit larger.

Warabimochi, matcha ice-cream and hojicha (1,100 yen) – The small bowl of dessert featured a few slices of warabimochi, or Japanese bracken-starch jelly, topped with mochi, red bean paste and a scoop of matcha ice-cream. 

As told by my server, I gave it a nice sprinkle of matcha powder on top. This was pretty delicate and definitely worth the 10-minute wait.

Is Nakamura Tokichi a bigger name than Tsujiri Uji when it comes to matcha desserts? I wasn't sure prior to this trip but judging from the lineup, it wasn't even close. Nakamura Tokichi’s facility was huge (bet the tea room was nice too!) but there was no way we were going to wait an hour for our afternoon tea, especially given our tight schedule.

Interestingly, there was this French pastry shop by the name of Yuji Patisserie right across the street from Nakamura Tokichi Honten.

I took a moment to check out their sweets, which included some intriguing options like a matcha mille-feuille, though it was sold out for the day. Otherwise, I wouldn’t mind a bite of that!

After years of talking about visiting Uji, it felt great to finally cross it off my list. Now, we could focus on Shiga Prefecture (滋賀県), another unfamiliar territory waiting to be explored in the next 24 hours.

Food Rating: 6/10

Price: ￥￥￥

Address: Myoraku 156, Uji, 611-0021 Kyoto, Japan

Closest Metro/Train Station: Uji

Tel: +81 (0)774 94-6990

Website: http://www.kataoka.com/tsujiri-ujihonten/index.html

Opening Hours: 10:00am - 6:00pm daily