Uji
— — the colour of matcha and slow water.
Not only on a wall.
“A small city on the Uji River, south of Kyoto and north of Nara, where the tea fields climb the hills above the town and the river runs clear and shallow over its stones. The Phoenix Hall of Byodo-in sits on its pond at the river's edge, the same building on the back of the ten-yen coin. The last chapters of the Tale of Genji are set here. The tea has been grown in these hills for eight hundred years.
Uji, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Uji is a small city of about 180,000 people in southern Kyoto Prefecture, set on the Uji River between Kyoto and Nara. Two of its sites carry UNESCO World Heritage status as part of the 1994 inscription of the Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto: the Byodo-in Buddhist temple, whose Phoenix Hall dates from 1053, and Ujigami Shrine, which dendrochronology dates to roughly 1060, making it one of the oldest extant Shinto shrines. Uji is also the closing setting of the eleventh-century Tale of Genji.
Tea has been grown in the hills above Uji since the late twelfth century, when the monk Eisai is said to have introduced seeds from China, and the town has been the heart of Japanese matcha production ever since. The cycle still organises the year: the first flush is shaded for several weeks in late spring and picked in May; high-grade gyokuro and ceremonial matcha come from that pick. The shops along Byodo-in Omotesando have sold tea by the same family names for generations.
Uji is roughly 25 minutes from Kyoto Station on the JR Nara Line. Most visitors walk south from Uji station, cross the river by the Uji Bridge, and reach Byodo-in's gate in about ten minutes. The Phoenix Hall pond catches the building in still water; the inner hall and the museum require a separate ticket. Ujigami Shrine sits on the east bank a short walk further on. Spring and autumn are the busiest hours; early morning before the first tour buses is the quiet window.