A corner of a shuttered shopping street. A machiya from 1892, dormant for 25 years, quietly awakened. Shinji Yoshikawa of Kamontei revived more than just the building. He also revived "Teishu no Cha," a traditional Murakami custom where the head of the family personally brews tea to entertain guests. The culture fostered in this northernmost tea-producing region and the Meiji-era machiya were quietly brought back to life, along with the culture of Murakami.
Shinji Yoshikawa
Born in Murakami City, Niigata Prefecture in 1964. Representative Director of Sennen Sake Kikkawa. In 1998, he established the "Murakami Machiya Merchants Association" to promote tourism and revitalize the community using machiya. He has made significant contributions to Murakami's tourism promotion by creating numerous regional events such as the "Machiya Hina Doll Tour," and has been selected as a Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Tourism Maverick and a Regional Revitalization Evangelist.
(*Article content is based on information at the time of the interview.)
#1 Peeling back the shutters revealed the Meiji era
A machiya awakened from a 25-year slumber. The resolve for revival, ignited for the town.
── What was the original condition of the Kamontei building?
This place had been an empty shop for about 25 years, and then an empty house for about 10 years.
By chance, it became available for use, but it's located in a shopping street and has a wide frontage of 14 meters. That's where the shutters were.
It looked bad, so I always wanted to revive it as a normal shop again.
── What did you start with to revive it?
At that time, it was an arcade shop with shutters, but originally, it was an old building from the Meiji era.
I believe it's a building from 1892. I asked the carpenter to strip everything new to find out where the main body of this building was.
What emerged were the ceiling, pillars, and mud walls. Then it was just a skeleton.
── That was a bold decision to restore its original appearance.
Originally, it was a wide hatago (inn) *1, but in the Showa era, it was converted into a general store.
*1 Hatago: Accommodation with meals in the Edo period.
Inside, there was a garage, a shop, an office, and small rooms. It was divided into about seven or eight sections, but we stripped them all away, and now it's in its current open state.
── I heard the garden was also quite overgrown.
As for the garden, while it now has stone lanterns and such, there were no such lanterns, stones, or mossy hills back then. It was a flat area with trees growing haphazardly, a truly wild garden.
But in this town, there's no other machiya with such a large garden.
So, to make the most of this building, I thought I had no choice but to bring the wild garden back to life, which had been so messed up that people said it was beyond repair, and that's when we started the major renovation of the garden.
── By reviving both the building and the garden, you restored the machiya to its original form, didn't you?
That's right. First, I had the desire to revive this as a wonderful machiya.
I wanted to utilize its age and transform it into a beautiful shop, so the renovation began. We changed the garden and renovated the inside of the building, and now it's in its current state.
#2 "Teishu no Cha," Murakami's unique custom
Not the wife, but the husband brews. A special hospitality passed down in the northernmost tea-producing region.
── After reviving the building, did you know what you would do with it?
Actually, I was always wondering what to do here.
I had several ideas of what I wanted to do here, but I finally decided to open a tea shop using Murakami's northernmost tea.
── Why tea?
Murakami has a truly interesting custom. Usually, when guests visit, the wife brews tea to entertain them.
In Murakami, it's different. The head of the family personally brews the tea to entertain guests. They have their own tea utensils, which is called "Teishu no Cha" (Host's Tea), and they brew a special tea with it.
We decided to create a shop where people could enjoy such a Murakami custom. This would be an effort to highlight the tea of Murakami, a tea-producing region at the northernmost limit, and to make Murakami's culture shine brighter.
I thought this was a job truly fitting for us, so we made it a tea salon where people can enjoy tea.
── What kind of particular attention is paid to the tea served here?
We are practicing "Teishu no Cha," where we brew tea ourselves, and we use the tea leaves that my father preferred to serve. We reproduce the same taste here for our guests to enjoy.
So, even though there's a lot of tea leaves, you might think, "Why is there so little tea coming out?" This is a special tea that my father liked to serve, where you're more tasting than drinking the first infusion.
── Does the flavor change with the second and third infusions?
The taste of the tea gradually changes. The third infusion is called "Fumi-cha" (flavored tea), and it's a tea enjoyed with added flavors of fruits or other ingredients.
Currently, we offer a choice of one item from a selection including Murakami yuzu, apples from Kumamoto and Nagano, new ginger from Kochi, and sabon from Inage City, Chiba Prefecture. These are arranged considering their compatibility with tea.
── So, these are carefully selected pairings to enjoy with tea.
That's right. These also change with the seasons. Only Hidaka kombu is available year-round; the rest are seasonal offerings.
We have myoga ginger coming out, or mountain wasabi.
We offer interesting seasonal items, but it's not just anything and everything. They're all carefully selected to pair well with tea, as in "Oh, this goes well with it."
