FOUNDER

Born into a tea-growing family established in 1946.

The owner of Ginza Fuka, Fuya Ohashi, was raised surrounded by the aroma of tea from an early age.

Shortly after the end of World War II, in 1946, his great-grandfather began cultivating tea in Warashina, one of Japan’s historic tea-growing regions.
His grandfather, Matsuo Ohashi, together with his wife Yasuyo, inherited the family tea business and continued to devote themselves to it with unwavering dedication throughout their lives.

"茶郷" Warashina

Warashina is one of the historic birthplaces of Shizuoka tea, nestled deep within the mountain valleys of central Japan.
For nearly 800 years, the region’s clear rivers, mineral-rich soil, and drifting mountain mist have shaped teas known for their refined aroma and elegant character.

THE BEGINNING

Early Memories in the Mountains of Warashina

As a child, Ohashi often spent his afternoons in the mountains after school, at the family’s small tea factory built beside a narrow tributary of the Warashina River.

Inside the factory, tea leaves were processed while millstones turned endlessly amid the sound of machinery and rising steam. During the harvest season, he climbed the mountain slopes alongside his grandparents carrying traditional tea baskets on their backs, carefully picking fresh green tea leaves by hand.

The fragrance of tea and the scenery of those mountains would remain deeply engraved in his memory for years to come.

A TURNING POINT

Twenty-Five Years Later 

Twenty-five years passed.

By then, Ohashi had spent more than a decade building and operating his own global import business, which was entering a major turning point.

As he traveled across the world, his attention gradually began turning back toward Japan itself. The more he explored other countries, the more deeply he came to appreciate the beauty of Japanese culture, nature, and craftsmanship.

Eventually, he decided to give form to the passion for tea that had long remained within him.

It was then that he returned once again to his grandparents’ tea factory.

The factory stood empty, filled only with silence.

Yet upon returning to that place, Ohashi found himself reconnecting with the aromas of tea, the memories of production, and the passion his grandparents once carried.

It was also the moment when the passion for tea that had quietly slept within him began to take shape once again.

"It was a rainy day at the end of April. I drove two and a half hours from Tokyo to reach that place.
I found the elementary school I once attended.
I saw the rice fields that had once seemed as vast as the entire world to me.
Beyond them rose the mountains of Warashina, stretching endlessly into the distance.
Yet all of it felt far smaller than it had in my memory.
At last, I pulled my car up in front of the old tea factory.
Would you believe it?
I realized that I had been there the day the concrete foundation of the factory was poured.
I could still remember the scent of freshly cut cedar beams.
The endless sound of the nearby stream.
The deep blue sky, almost as if painted with crayons, and the brilliant white sunlight pouring over everything. Every detail came back to me with startling clarity.
My father and grandfather painting the roof.
My grandmother smiling quietly as she handed me a glass of cold green tea glowing like gold in the sunlight. I remembered even the expressions on all of their faces.
- FUYA OHASHI"

THE ENCOUNTER

Meeting a Tea Farmer

Afterward, Ohashi began searching for tea farmers who still preserved traditional tea-making methods along the Warashina River basin.

Eventually, he encountered a tea farmer in Kozeto, Shizuoka — only a few kilometers from Yoshizu, where the original family factory once stood. The farmer happened to be the father of one of Ohashi’s childhood classmates and had also known Ohashi’s father for many years.

Today, much of Shizuoka tea is produced by blending leaves sourced from multiple regions. In contrast, this farm continues to produce true single-estate tea, using only leaves harvested from a single tea garden.

Ohashi immediately formed a partnership with him.

The farm’s production remains extremely limited, yet the farmer promised to reserve the highest-quality tea of each year exclusively for Ginza Fuka.

SIGNATURE TEA

Reverie of Warashina

Thus, Ginza Fuka’s signature tea,
“Reverie of Warashina,” was born.

Cultivated in the mountains through which the clear waters of the Warashina River flow, this tea possesses an aroma and character unique to the region itself.

Its fragrance brought Ohashi a constant stream of new inspiration.

By combining exceptional Japanese tea leaves with ingredients such as traditional botanicals, dried citrus peel, and herbs, he gradually began creating an entirely new expression of Japanese tea.

Nearly eighty years after the family first began tea cultivation, Ohashi — born into a tea-farming lineage and raised with a lifelong love of tea — opened Ginza Fuka as a luxury matcha and Japanese tea sanctuary dedicated to sharing this experience with the world.

SANCTUARY

The Beginning of Ginza Fuka

In 2025, Ginza Fuka was born as a place dedicated to offering a new experience of Japanese tea.

Ginza Fuka
A Japanese Tea Sanctuary in Tokyo

The experience found here is neither simple tea selection nor mere tasting.

It is an immersive journey into the inherited spirit of Japanese tea culture that has flowed through generations along the banks of the Warashina River — a deeply sensory experience filled with aroma, scenery, memory, and emotion.