National Important Cultural Asset Ochaya SHIMA

The tea house, built in 1820, is located on the Higashi Chaya-Gai District and is open to the public in its original state.
It is a valuable facility for tourists to learn about tea house culture, as Kanazawa's tea house culture has a tradition of "No first-time visitors" and even today, visitors are not allowed to enter without an introducer.

The second floor is a guest room, a structure unique to tea houses, with no closet, storage space, or partition walls, and is elegantly constructed mainly for entertainment.
When guests sat with their backs to the tokonoma (alcove), the antechamber was in front of them, and as soon as the fusuma (sliding door) was opened, a gorgeous dance or entertainment was performed.
Visitors can tour each of the rooms on the first and second floors to observe the meticulous attention to detail that went into the hospitality of the rooms.

Higashi Chaya-Gai District and Nishi Chaya-Gai District began in 1820 when Maeda Narinaga, the 12th lord of the Kaga Domain, built tea houses scattered throughout the castle town to form a tea house district.
Ochaya / Tea houses were places where wealthy merchants and men of the town gathered at night during the Edo period to enjoy the entertainment of geiko dancing and shamisen playing, and it is said that the wide range of skills and education of these geiko became the foundation of "Kanazawa as a place of performing arts."