Gion Tsujiri

Gion Tsujiri's own account puts its family's ties to Uji tea cultivation at more than 800 years, but the retail business as it operates today dates to 1860, when Riemon Tsuji I and Tokujiro II founded a tea shop in Uji itself. The third generation opened the Gion storefront in 1948, on Shijo-dori, selling leaf grown and processed in Uji and grinding matcha in-house for both tins to take home and drinks made on site. Thirty years later, in 1978, the fifth generation added Saryo Tsujiri on the shop's second and third floors - described by the family as a tea-drinking dojo, built around the idea that Uji tea could be eaten as much as drunk. That idea became the Tsujiri Parfait, layers of matcha jelly, ice cream, shiratama rice dumplings and sweet azuki bean built around the same matcha the shop sells by the tin, alongside anmitsu, zenzai and seasonal shaved ice on the same menu. The tea room draws crowds on its own terms now, often with a wait, but the shop below still functions as it always has: a Uji tea retailer first, with the dessert operation built directly on top of it rather than run as a separate concept. Few matcha parfaits in Kyoto carry the weight of a tea-growing lineage; here, one is served plated with a spoon.