Ohashi Saryo Teahouse Yamabuki

Ohashi Saryo Teahouse Yamabuki, the Wing with the Entrance

Ohashi Saryo Teahouse Yamabuki (大橋茶寮茶室山吹, Ōhashi Saryō Chashitsu Yamabuki) 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 at the middle of the east side of the grounds: single-storey timber, gabled and roofed in pantiles with some copper, earth-plastered outside, over a building area of 96 square metres. Only Aoi is larger.

Valued for Its Craftsmanship

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

The Agency for Cultural Affairs credits it with advanced sukiya craftsmanship. Unlike the Joan copy, Aoi and Katsura, it has no recorded model; it is valued for the quality of the work itself.

The operator calls Yamabuki an intimate room for close gatherings, its 8 mats meant to draw guests together.

Beside the alcove, the operator notes, the wall is cut through and set with a row of 11 arrow feathers, a detail worth looking for if you are shown into the room.

Room, Preparation Room, Entrance and Anterooms in a Row

Ohashi Saryo Teahouse Yamabuki puts its 8-mat room facing the garden, with a Mizuya preparation room to the east.

North of the room is the entrance of the whole tea house, and north of that are anterooms reaching to the north-east corner. Yamabuki is both a tea room and the building through which Ohashi Saryo is entered.

The front gate stands a little north of the middle of the east side, on the same edge as the entrance.

To the south, the Joan copy joins Yamabuki through its preparation room, so the two east-side tea rooms run on as one building.

Visiting Ohashi Saryo Teahouse Yamabuki

From the street you see only the east wall and front gate; Ohashi Saryo Teahouse Yamabuki itself is inside.

The interior can be entered only by attending a tea gathering at Ohashi Saryo. Because the entrance is in this wing, guests step up into the tea house beside Yamabuki.

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.