You don’t have to travel to Kyoto to sit in a real Japanese tea room and drink matcha with a seasonal sweet. In western Tokyo, within reach of Tachikawa Station, a wooden teahouse in the sukiya style stands on the western shore of a pond in a Japanese garden of roughly six hectares. Its name is Kanfutei (歓楓亭, also romanised as Kanpu-tei), and it sits inside the Japanese Garden of Showa Kinen Park. For park admission — 450 yen — plus 900 yen for tea, you can sit on tatami and look out over the garden while you drink.
1. What Is Kanfutei?
A sukiya-style teahouse on the west bank of the pond
Kanfutei is a single-storey wooden building in the sukiya style, standing on the western side of the pond in the Japanese Garden of Showa Kinen Park in Tachikawa, Tokyo. From inside, you look out across the full depth of the water.
Sukiya is the architectural style that grew out of the tea ceremony. It plays down ornament and lets the natural character of the timber carry the design instead — unpainted posts, visible grain, bark left in place where the carpenter wants it. Kanfutei uses materials brought together from across Japan: cedar logs from Kitayama, sabi-maruta logs from Yoshino, and cypress boards from Kiso. The joinery where posts meet beams draws on traditional techniques that only a shrinking number of sukiya carpenters in Japan still practise.
One detail worth hunting for: the transom above the mizuya, the preparation area, carries openwork carving of maple leaves and winged seeds, echoing the name Kanfutei. With the maples planted outside, it tells you this teahouse was conceived around the autumn colours.
The park it belongs to
Showa Kinen Park was created as part of the programme commemorating the 50th year of Emperor Showa’s reign, on the site of the former US military airfield at Tachikawa. It covers 180 hectares, and the first 70-hectare section opened on 26 October 1983. The park straddles the cities of Tachikawa and Akishima, and was planned around the theme of restoring greenery and enriching human life.
The Japanese Garden was added in one corner in April 1997, designed to concentrate the Japanese view of nature into a single space and give visitors somewhere to experience traditional culture first-hand.
2. Inside the Building
The great room (11 mats) and the adjoining room (8 mats)
Kanfutei is laid out as a great room with a tokonoma alcove, an adjoining room, a waiting room, a small tea room, standing-style seating, a mizuya, and service space. The best views are from these first two rooms, positioned so guests look out on the finest part of the garden. In the adjoining room, the posts are Kitayama cedar with the bark surface partly left on, the sliding fusuma doors are painted with maple, and the transoms are openwork-carved paulownia panels.
The waiting room (6 mats) and the tea room “Hoshun” (4.5 mats)
In the transom of the waiting room, the joints of smoked bamboo draw the ridgeline of the hills seen from the woods on the garden’s northern side. The small room is a four-and-a-half-mat tea room named Hoshun, where the finer points of sukiya work sit at arm’s length: a tokobashira post with camellia bark attached, a chestnut-bark floor frame, a cattail-leaf ceiling, and a kakekomi sloping ceiling.
The standing seats “Kosai” — no kneeling required
If sitting on your heels is a concern, the area to know about is the standing-style seating, called Kosai. The floor is laid with traditional roof tiles and you keep your shoes on while you watch the tea being prepared. With no need to kneel on tatami, travellers and anyone worried about their knees or back can still take in the atmosphere of a tea gathering.
The entrance is paved with jet-black stone slabs, and the mizuya has a ceiling of polished reed.
3. Matcha and a Seasonal Sweet
What you get, and what it costs
Kanfutei serves teisha — a set of matcha and a Japanese sweet — for 900 yen. You drink it looking out at the garden, and because the jo-namagashi sweet changes with the season, the same order looks and tastes different depending on when you come.
Opening hours and closures
Hours shift with the season. From March to October the service runs 10:30–12:30 and 13:00–16:00; from November to February, 10:30–12:30 and 13:00–15:30. Last orders are taken 30 minutes before the end of each session, and when it is busy the counter may close earlier still, depending on the queue. It is closed on Fridays between 8 June and 4 September, and on days the park itself is closed. There is seating for around 20 people.
Bring cash
Cashless payment works for admission, parking and the park’s shops and restaurants, but not for the tea service. Bring cash.
4. Joining a Tea Ceremony
The third Sunday of every month
Kanfutei runs an introductory session called Hajimete no Ochashitsu, literally “your first tea room,” on the third Sunday of every month. You watch the tea being prepared in front of you and learn the basics: how to eat a jo-namagashi sweet in a tea room, and how to drink thin tea.
There are two sessions, 11:00–12:00 and 13:00–14:00. Participation costs 1,200 yen, paid in cash on the day. Capacity is 16 per session — 12 places bookable online in advance, and 4 held for same-day sign-ups, taken first-come if space remains. Reception opens 15 minutes beforehand.
One thing to plan for: you are asked to wear socks inside Kanfutei. If you are visiting in summer in sandals, bring a pair.
Whisking your own bowl: the obon-date experience
For anyone who wants to whisk the tea themselves, Kanfutei also accepts bookings for an obon-date experience, where you make your own bowl and enjoy it alongside the seasonal view. To arrange it, contact the Showa Kinen Park Management Center on 042-528-1867, or speak to the staff at Kanfutei. Sessions run as obon-date cost 2,000 yen.
Renting the tea room
Kanfutei can also be hired for traditional cultural activities — tea ceremony, haiku, shigin poetry chanting. Booking is paid and made in advance: telephone between three months and one week ahead, then submit the application form at least one week before. The great room costs 4,300 yen for a morning, 6,300 yen for an afternoon and 10,600 yen for a full day. From November to February, use ends at 16:00. Enquiries: 042-528-1867.
5. The Garden Around Kanfutei
Built as a strolling pond garden
The Japanese Garden covers about six hectares, the largest built in the Tokyo metropolitan area since the war. It follows the chisen-kaiyu-shiki style — a strolling garden arranged around a pond — which developed during the Edo period: you walk the circuit and the composition shifts with every few steps.
On the northern side there is stonework in the nozura-zumi method, using rough natural stones; near the foot of the wooden bridge there is a tsukubai, the low stone basin for rinsing hands; and in winter the pines are given yukitsuri, the rope supports that protect branches from snow. Bamboo fences, the roji tea garden path, stepping stones and paved runs are on display too.
The four structures in the garden
Kanfutei is one of four. Seichiken juts out over the water, so from the far bank it appears to float. From the Shoyo pavilion, the northern hills reflected in the pond are framed by the structure, so the view reads like a picture in a mount. Beside Ryobotei, the waterfall-viewing pavilion, water rising in the northern woods drops seven metres over rocks and runs into the pond as a stream.
A garden designed for autumn
An artificial hill with a 30-metre change in elevation was raised along the northern edge, planted mainly with pine and oak; borrowed as background scenery, it gives the garden its depth. The outer edge is planted with evergreens and moso bamboo, screening the surrounding buildings so the garden reads as a space cut off from everyday life.
Older Japanese gardens tend to be heavy with evergreens. Here, deciduous broadleaf trees such as maple and oak make up around 60 per cent of the planting, evoking the bright woodland of the Musashino plain — and giving the park autumn colour it did not have before. Across the year: plum and narcissus in early spring; cherry, peony and azalea in spring; hydrangea and Japanese iris in early summer; water lily and bellflower in summer; and camellia and sasanqua in winter.
6. Worth Adding to Your Visit: The Bonsai Garden
Inside the Japanese Garden there is also a bonsai garden, opened on 3 November 2004 — Culture Day — as the first national bonsai display facility in Japan. The collection runs to about 80 pots, of which roughly 50 are shown at any one time, rotated to suit the season. Specialist staff maintain the trees and explain what to look for, and the Sanjutei building holds indoor displays including alcove arrangements.
7. Access, Prices and Planning Your Visit
Admission and opening hours
Admission is 450 yen for adults (high school age and above), 210 yen for visitors aged 65 and over, and free for junior high school students and younger. The park opens 9:30–17:00 in March, April to September, and October, and 9:30–16:30 from November to February; on weekends and public holidays from April to September it closes at 18:00. It is shut on 31 December and 1 January, and from the third Monday to the following Friday in January. The Japanese Garden and Kanfutei are open from 9:30 until 30 minutes before the park closes.
Which gate to use
The park is large enough that your choice of gate matters. The closest to Kanfutei is Sunagawa Gate, about 17 minutes on foot; from Nishi-Tachikawa Gate it is about 22 minutes, and from Tachikawa Gate about 27 minutes.
By rail, Nishi-Tachikawa Station (JR Ome Line) is about 2 minutes from Nishi-Tachikawa Gate, Tachikawa Station (JR Chuo Line, north exit) about 18 minutes from Tachikawa Gate, and Musashi-Sunagawa Station (Seibu Haijima Line) about 20 minutes from Sunagawa Gate. By bus, take a service from stop 2 at the terminal outside Tachikawa Station’s north exit to Showa Kinen Koen Sunagawaguchi — about 13 minutes, 290 yen as of April 2024 — then walk about 2 minutes.
Distances inside the park are long, so rental bicycles (600 yen for three hours for adults) are useful. Cycling is only permitted on the cycling course; the Japanese Garden itself is walked.
Etiquette and practical notes
Inside the Japanese Garden, visitors are asked to refrain from bringing pets, smoking, eating and drinking, and using picnic sheets or tents — though drinking water to avoid heatstroke is fine. Socks are worn inside Kanfutei. The tea service is cash only. The standing-seat area is used for the tea service, so it is not always available for private hire. Prices and hours are subject to change, so check the official website before you go.
8. Frequently Asked Questions
How much does it cost? Admission is 450 yen for an adult, and the tea and sweet set is 900 yen on top. The Hajimete no Ochashitsu session is 1,200 yen; obon-date sessions are 2,000 yen.
What if I can’t sit on the floor? Kanfutei has a standing-style seating area, Kosai, with a tiled floor, where you keep your shoes on and can still watch the tea being prepared.
When is the best time to visit? Deciduous trees make up about 60 per cent of the planting, so autumn colour is the headline — but there is blossom and azalea in spring, iris in early summer, and yukitsuri on the pines in winter.
Which gate should I use? Sunagawa Gate, about 17 minutes on foot.
Final Thoughts
Kanfutei lets you step into a genuine sukiya tea room in a quiet that better-known sightseeing spots can’t offer. For admission plus 900 yen, you sit in a room overlooking the pond and drink matcha with a sweet made for the season. Walking a garden built for its maples, then sitting down to a bowl of tea while you look at it, is a fine way to close out a day in Tokyo.
