Top Kyoto Desserts & Sweets

Get a deeper experience of Kyoto food culture than would be possible on your own by joining this guided food tour. Stroll through the districts of Gion and Pontocho, stopping into small bars and restaurants to sample traditional drinks and food that have been carefully chosen to make up a full meal. The experience also includes the opportunity to try three different types of local sake too.

Perform a traditional Japanese tea ceremony dressed in a ceremonial kimono during this cultural experience in Kyoto. Learn about the meaning of different kimono patterns and the history behind the tea ceremony from your guide, then watch the professional tea master prepare a cup of tea. Sip your tea and learn about Japanese manners during a tea ceremony, then enjoy the opportunity to try your hand at brewing your own.

Get an insiders' eye perspective on Kyoto on this walking tour that combines a food tour with anthropological insight. Wander through the city's streets and understand the nighttime entertainment scene, from geiko (geisha) to hostesses. Afterward, sample regional specialties accompanied by included drinks at standing bars/restaurants.

Would you like to brew your own delicious tea? In most tea ceremony workshops, you are not allowed to handle tea utensils. However, in the hands-on classes we host, you can actually touch the utensils and learn the process of brewing tea from scratch. The instructor is a master of the Higashi Abe school. They have taught many students, so they will gently and carefully teach you how to make tea. You are also welcome to take as many pictures as you like to make your experience memorable. We hope you will make your trip to Japan a memorable and enjoyable one.

At the heart of Kyoto the “Flower Districts” around Gion and Pontocho, these are the city’s most famous entertainment districts and the center of traditional culture and nightlife. We will start our tour by strolling around a more hidden “flower-district” (the historic name for areas with tea houses featuring music and dance performed by Kyoto’s famous geisha.) If we are lucky we will spot the Maiko and Geiko on their way to work for the evening. Please note: due to legal restrictions at some of our stops on this tour- all members of your group must be 20 years old or older.

First we will go to Daitokuji which is a collection of small zen temples. Though there are more than 20 of them, usually only 4 are open for public. We will visit three of them. Each temple has its own uniqueness with differently designed stone gardens. Nowadays Kyoto is getting very crowded, but if we go to Daitokuji early in the morning, it is very quiet usually and we can sit in front of stone garden and relax. If you would like to meditate, you can try to do that too!!! After going through those temples, we will go to the Aburimochi store. One of the two shops started in the year 1000! They have been in business for more than 1000 years. Their mochi is considered the origin of all the Japanese sweets. We can sit in the outside area and eat the mochi with tea. We will go to Imamiya Shrine afterwards. I could let you know how to properly visit a Japanese shrine including how to pray! Plus there is an interesting story behind this shrine that many Japanese ladies come and pray here.

First, you will take sweets and green tea making class.　They select the Japanese sweets made of bean paste depending on the seasons. You will make Maccha green tea by yourself. After walking along Takasegawa river, you will enter NIshiki market street where you can choose to eat anything at stalls. Then, on sunny day, Picknick at Chohoji temple. you learn a little about Way of flower in Japan at the place where Ikenobou school(flower arrangement school) was given birth. On rainy day or too hot day out for picknick, you can have shaved ice or any Japanese sweets at a Japanese style cafe.