Ohashi Saryo Teahouse Joan Copy

Ohashi Saryo Teahouse Joan Copy, the Smallest Tea Room on the Site

Ohashi Saryo Teahouse Joan Copy (大橋茶寮茶室如庵写, Ōhashi Saryō Chashitsu Joan-utsushi) is a tea room built around 1949 at the Ohashi Saryo tea house, 5-6-6 Toranomon, Minato-ku, Tokyo, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 3 August 2006.

It stands a little south of the middle of the east side of the grounds and, at 14 square metres, is the smallest of the five tea rooms: single-storey timber, gabled and roofed in pantiles, with log posts and walls of earth plaster.

Three and a Half Mats After Joan

Ohashi Saryo Teahouse Joan Copy was registered under the criterion of being not easily reproduced.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes it as a small building of three and a half mats, made in imitation of Joan.

Joan (如庵) is the tea room built by Oda Urakusai, younger brother of Oda Nobunaga and a noted tea master; it now stands in Inuyama, Aichi Prefecture. It is one of the best-known tea rooms in Japan and has been copied in many places.

Utsushi, the last word of the Japanese name, means a copy made after a model. Of the five tea rooms at Ohashi Saryo, only this one names its model outright.

The operator presents it as a reproduction of Urakusai's Joan, and as a sign of the tea house's commitment to the classical line of tea-room building.

Log Posts, a Shingled Eave, and a Link to Yamabuki

The main roof of Ohashi Saryo Teahouse Joan Copy is tiled, but on the west side a Hisashi eave is roofed in Kokerabuki, thin wooden shingles. Two roofing materials meet on one very small building.

The posts are logs left round rather than squared, which gives the small room its rustic character.

A Mizuya preparation room lies to the north, and beyond it the building joins the Yamabuki tea room. What looks like a free-standing hut is in fact continuous with its larger neighbour.

Yamabuki at the middle of the east side and the Joan copy just south of it together take up the eastern side of the grounds.

Visiting Ohashi Saryo Teahouse Joan Copy

Ohashi Saryo Teahouse Joan Copy sits on the east side of the grounds, south of Yamabuki, and cannot be seen properly from the street.

The interior can be entered only by attending a tea gathering at Ohashi Saryo. With three and a half mats, it takes only a few guests at a time.

No published photography policy was found; follow the host's instructions on the day.

Directions and general visiting conditions are on the Ohashi Saryo page.