Matsumoto: Home Tea Experience with a Local "Auntie"

Experience a private tea time in Matsumoto with a local guide. Visit a local shop, draw fresh spring water, and learn how to make tea. Write your name in kanji on a decorative envelope to take home.
Meet your guide, a warm local "Auntie" from Matsumoto who knows the town inside and out, for a private, small-group experience. Enjoy a genuine Japanese home-style tea time inside a beautifully restored 19th-century kura (traditional storehouse) in the heart of Matsumoto, plus a simple calligraphy experience.

Start by discussing your food preferences and what treats you'd like to try. Based on your answer, your guide will take you to a shop where local residents do their everyday shopping. Together with your guide, you'll pick out 2-3 treats to try, with her explaining the unfamiliar snacks, drinks, and local specialties along the way.

Then, arrive at the kura or the cafespace, a beautifully preserved storehouse building with thick earthen walls, where a private room is reserved just for your group. Before settling in, draw fresh spring water yourself from the building's traditional hand-pump well — a small, hands-on moment that becomes part of your own tea time.

From the treat you picked out at the shop, to the local spring water or fresh tap water you prepare, right through to preparing and finally sitting down to enjoy your tea — every step is something you do yourself, not something you simply watch. Your guide will gently guide you through small, everyday details of how tea is really made and shared in a Japanese household, such as cooling the water to the right temperature (yuzamashi) and presenting your cup on its own saucer (chataku), but the experience itself is yours to carry out from start to finish.

After tea time, your guide will turn your own name into meaningful kanji characters, chosen just for you, and hand you a traditional writing tool found in almost every Japanese household to write it yourself onto a traditional decorative envelope used in Japan for celebratory gifts. Your guide will explain the meaning behind the mizuhiki cords tied on the envelope, a small piece of Japanese culture most visitors never learn about. Take home your own hand-written kanji on this envelope as a one-of-a-kind souvenir — one you can even use for a real celebratory gift someday.

För att garantera tillgänglighet, boka så snart som möjligt. Tidig bokning är värt att överväga, särskilt om du planerar resan under högsäsong som allmänna helgdagar eller helger.

Denna utflykt kan du avboka utan kostnad upp till 24 timmar före resans start. Om du avbokar efter 24 timmar eller inte dyker upp på utflykten kommer du fortfarande att debiteras hela priset för aktiviteten. Att vara sen vid upphämtning eller avresa kommer att betraktas som att inte dyka upp.