A Tea Merchant's Shopfront in Coal-Era Nogata
Maedaen Honten Store (前田園本店店舗, also written Maeda-en Honten Tenpo) is a two-storey wooden merchant building at 590-1 Tonomachi in Nogata City, Fukuoka Prefecture, built around 1927 and entered on Japan's register of Tangible Cultural Properties on 24 December 2013. It carries registration number 40-0107 and has a building area of 112 square metres.
The shop faces east onto the street beneath a gabled roof of sangawara pantiles. The upper storey is what stops people on the pavement. Its wall is finished in black lime plaster, the lower band and the unusually broad window frames are sheathed in copper, and a short tiled pent roof runs across the front above the ground floor. The framing is degeta-zukuri, with the purlins carried out on projecting beam ends, so the second floor leans very slightly forward over the street.
Nogata sits in the Chikuho basin, the largest coalfield in Japan through the Meiji and Taisho years. Tea, coal and river shipping moved through the same streets here. By the firm's own account the Maeda family traded in Hakata under the shop name Tashiroya, the fourteenth head Maeda Chojiro relocated to Nogata around 1897, and his son Chokichi is said to have built the wholesale tea business by supplying the Kaijima collieries.
Why the Building Was Registered
Japan runs two parallel systems for historic buildings, and the difference matters when you read the label on this one. Designation (shitei) covers a small number of nationally important structures under strict control. Registration (toroku), introduced in 1996, is deliberately lighter: the owner goes on using the building, and only alterations affecting more than a quarter of the exterior require notification. Buildings roughly fifty years old or more qualify.
Maedaen Honten Store was accepted under the first of the three registration criteria, as a building contributing to the historic landscape of the country. It came through in the 76th round of listings, on the same day as the brick warehouse behind it.
The interior explains the decision better than any criterion. The ground floor was built with good zelkova (keyaki) timber and arranged around the mise, the front room where tea was weighed out and customers were received. The second floor was finished as zashiki, matted rooms for guests. Nogata City records the beams overhead at roughly 50 centimetres across, a scale that says plainly what a tea wholesaler in a coal town could command in the 1920s.
One date needs care. The Agency for Cultural Affairs records construction as around Showa 2, that is 1927. Nogata City and local reporting give 1926, the final year of the Taisho era. The gap is a single year and no published document settles it, so both figures appear in print.
Going Inside Today
This is not a museum. It came very close to being a car park.
Trading became difficult and the shop closed around 2016. Demolition was close to settled when Shiokawa Naoto, a Nogata city employee and licensed first-class architect, bought the building instead. Restoration drawings prepared for an earlier survey had survived, and working from them he and his wife Takako spent about half a year pulling out a later ceiling to recover the original double-height space and the earth-floored doma. Shio Cafe opened on the ground floor in April 2022.
Maedaen tea still goes into the cups. The matcha latte is the order most people place, frequently with a narikin manju, a Nogata sweet, branded with the cafe's own iron. Wooden cable drums have been turned into tables. Old tea chests became chairs, and the glass case that once displayed tea now holds penny sweets for local children.
You can look at the facade from the street at any hour. Going inside means arriving as a cafe customer, and the opening hours have changed more than once since 2022, so check the cafe's own site or its Instagram account before travelling. Photography inside is usual among visitors, though asking at the counter first is the courteous move. The walk from the east exit of JR Nogata Station takes about ten to eleven minutes through the covered shopping street, and there is parking on the site.
A point of confusion is worth clearing up. The Maedaen tea company is still in business a few minutes away, at 9-33 Tonomachi, trading under the shop name KANECHOU MAEDAEN. The registered building is the former shop, which is why local signage usually calls it Kyu Maedaen Honten Tenpo, the old Maedaen main shop.
Two other registered buildings sit within an easy walk: the Nogata Tanio Museum of Art, which occupies a former Meiji-period clinic and the house beside it, and Art Space Tanio in the old Nogata branch of the Seventeenth Bank. The old Nagasaki Road passed close to these blocks, and a handful of Meiji and Taisho machiya townhouses remain scattered among them.
- 📍 Plan Your Visit to Fukuoka
- Find tours, activities & transport passes near Maedaen Main Store
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Q&A
- Can visitors go inside Maedaen Honten Store?
- Yes. The ground floor operates as Shio Cafe, so the interior is open to paying customers during business hours. The exterior can be viewed from the street at any time. Hours and closing days have been revised several times since the cafe opened in April 2022, so confirm on the cafe's website or Instagram before you go.
- How do I reach Maedaen Honten Store from Nogata Station?
- Leave JR Nogata Station by the east exit and walk roughly ten to eleven minutes, passing through the covered shopping street towards Tonomachi. The building is close to Nogata City Hall. Parking is available on site for those arriving by car.
- When was Maedaen Honten Store built and when was it registered?
- The Agency for Cultural Affairs gives the construction date as around 1927 (Showa 2), while Nogata City and local press reports give 1926 (Taisho 15). Registration as a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property took effect on 24 December 2013, under registration number 40-0107.
- Is Maedaen Honten Store the same as the Maedaen tea shop that is still trading?
- No. The registered building is the former main shop and now houses a cafe. The tea company itself continues to operate at 9-33 Tonomachi under the name KANECHOU MAEDAEN, a short walk away. Local signs often add the prefix kyu, meaning former, to the heritage building's name.
- What should I look for on the facade of Maedaen Honten Store?
- Look up at the second storey: black lime plaster above, copper sheathing across the lower band and around the wide window frames, and the projecting beam ends of degeta-zukuri framing that push the purlins out over the street. The small tiled pent roof between the two floors is part of the same composition.
Basic Information
| Name | Maedaen Honten Store (前田園本店店舗 / Maeda-en Honten Tenpo), locally Kyu Maedaen Honten Tenpo |
|---|---|
| Location | 590-1 Tonomachi, Nogata City, Fukuoka Prefecture (street address 12-23 Tonomachi) |
| Designation | National Registered Tangible Cultural Property (building), registration number 40-0107, 76th round |
| Year Designated | 24 December 2013 (Heisei 25) |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Two-storey timber frame, tiled roof, building area 112 square metres; gabled sangawara pantile roof |
| Owner | Privately owned; no owner name is published in the national database |
| Public Access | Exterior viewable from the street at any time; interior accessible as Shio Cafe during business hours |
References
- National Cultural Properties Database, Agency for Cultural Affairs — Maedaen Honten Store
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00009851
- Cultural Heritage Online — Maedaen Honten Store
- https://bunka.nii.ac.jp/heritages/detail/279420
- Shio Cafe — shop information
- https://www.shiocafe.com/about.php
- Nogata City Tourism Portal — Shio Cafe
- https://nogata-kankoh.com/eat/2035.html
- Sasatto (Yomiuri Shimbun Seibu) — report on the restoration of the former Maedaen main shop
- https://sasatto.jp/article/entry-3726.html
Last verified: 2026.08.25