Photo: Kentin / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Detailed picks
Coffee and matcha
The breaks from the itineraries: tea houses, old kissaten, and cafes with a view.
15 cafes and tea houses in 8 cities. Every place that comes from an itinerary links to its full day.
Tokyo
4 cafes and tea housesGarden · Tokyo, Ginza
Hamarikyu Gardens: a seawater pond and a tea house
A garden of the shogun's family from the 17th century, surrounded by skyscrapers.
Experience · Tokyo, Akihabara
Maid cafe: once in a lifetime, and then you get it
If you did not go back to the hotel, carry on here.
Break · Tokyo, West
Bonus Track: a mini street of independent shops and coffee
If you did not go back to the hotel, rest here.
Kyoto
3 cafes and tea housesTemple and garden · Kyoto, Higashiyama
Kodai-ji: garden, bamboo and Rikyu's tea house
The temple that the widow of Toyotomi Hideyoshi built in 1606.
Break · Kyoto, Arashiyama
% Arabica: the coffee with the queue and the view
A short break, if you have time.
Break · Kyoto, northern Higashiyama
Blue Bottle Nanzen-ji: coffee in a 100-year-old machiya house
The day's break, if you have time.
Osaka
one cafeBreak · Osaka
Amerikamura: coffee and vintage before the neon
Osaka's youth district, the equivalent of Harajuku: American vintage shops, sneakers and coffee.
Kobe
2 cafes and tea housesKobe · Old kissaten
Kobe Nishimura Coffee, Nakayamate main store
It opened in 1948 with only three tables, and moved to its current location in 1952. The building is in a northern German style, was damaged in the Great Hanshin earthquake of 1995 and reopened half a year later, and was rebuilt in 2005 for structural safety. 8:30 to 22:00 (since 1 June 2026), which means both a morning coffee and one after dinner. The pancakes are served at the main store only. A ten-minute walk from Kitano.
District · Kobe
Motomachi and Kyu-kyoryuchi: the old banks and Kobe's coffee
The former foreign settlement: old bank and office buildings that became brand shops and cafes, and Building No.
Sapporo
2 cafes and tea housesSapporo · Wooden house
MORIHICO. main store, Maruyama
A wooden house about seventy years old next to the forest of Hokkaido Shrine, which the artist Ichikawa renovated over three years and opened as a cafe in 1996. From here grew a chain of 14 branches in Sapporo and Asahikawa, each with its own concept, but this house is the origin. Beans roasted in-house and coffee brewed cup by cup. 9:00 to 20:00 with last order at 19:00, open all year except the New Year holiday. Four minutes from Maruyama Koen Station.
Break · Sapporo
Shiroi Koibito Park: the cookie factory with the courtyard
The factory of the 'White Lover' cookie (white chocolate between two cookies, the Hokkaido souvenir), in a building that looks like a Europe
Kiso Valley
one cafeBreak · Kiso Valley
Tateba Tea House: free green tea by the hearth
A tea house about two hundred years old, built as a rest stop between the towns and run today by a local association: you sit by the hearth,
Kamakura and Enoshima
one cafeTemple and garden · Kamakura
Hokoku-ji: the bamboo temple with matcha in the grove
A small, quiet bamboo grove, the modest version of Arashiyama, with a tea house inside: matcha and a sweet, sipped among the stalks.
Uji
one cafeTea · Uji
Byodo-in Omotesando Street: the tea shops of Uji
The temple's approach street is all tea: matcha fried in tempura, matcha ice cream, green tea soba, and powders to buy for home (¥1,000 for