Tsuen (通圓) stands at the east end of Uji Bridge, opposite Keihan Uji station. Its founder was appointed keeper of the bridge and gave tea to travellers. The 24th generation of the family runs the single shop today, in a building dating from 1672.
Why it's unique
Tsuen has served tea at the bridge since 1160, which is how the shop itself puts it. nippon.com and English Wikipedia both call it the oldest surviving tea house. The date is family tradition rather than a certified title, so the claim here is the shop's own wording.
Ashikaga Yoshimasa, Hideyoshi and Ieyasu are all recorded as having drunk tea here, and it is the shop that appears in the kyōgen play Tsūen. You sit in a tea room looking onto the river and the bridge the family once guarded, still run by the same family as a single shop.
Before you go
Look for the wooden figure of the first Tsuen, said to have been given to the family by the Zen monk Ikkyū. Most people buy tea dango at the counter and leave. Sit down in the tea room instead, which looks onto the river and the bridge. The cold zaru cha-soba is the thing to order if you want lunch rather than sweets.
