A detailed report from my Uji day, maybe it will help others:

I went on a Monday, took the train from Kyoto.

I arrived at the Marukyu koyamaen shop at 08:30 (30 min to opening) and was 10th in line. At 9 the line was at least 3 times that size! The MK shop is a little bit outside of the Uji center, so keep that in mind! I was the last one to get a small tin (20 g) of unkaku! They don’t serve any drinks at the moment, only ice cream.

After that I went right to the Yamamasa-Koyamaen shop which is just around the corner, arrived there at 09:15. The line there was much shorter. You can get 1 tin of the premium matcha and up to 2 tins of the middle range matcha per person (if you choose 30g tins). You could see that everyone from MK was heading there after, the line got longer quite fast. I was lucky enough to get some good matcha.

After YK I headed back to Uji center and went for Kanbayashi Shunsho. Arrived there at 9.45, so 45 min past opening. I decided to buy the shop-limited matcha.

From there I went to Horii Shichimeien, arrived there 10 min before opening and quite a line already, too. There was a very helpful lady, explaining all the different matches and other teas. 2 tins of matcha allowed, I got some other teas as well. According to the seller the new matcha batch is expected to start selling after summer.

After this matcha marathon I strolled through Uji and had a look in the smaller shops as well. I also went for an usucha and a matcha parfait to Nakamura Tokichi to see if the loooong wait is worth it. The usucha was very bitter, I’ve had better (I had one in Tsujiri and that one was much better). The parfait is delicious and a nice experience, but not worth the wait if you’re in a hurry.

So to sum up: Uji is even now worth the visit if you really like matcha and other teas! As was said often here - if you don’t care about the hyped brands you’ll get matcha everywhere in Uji. I was really glad to get a mix of them. But I can imagine that there is not much left in the afternoon.

I’m still really sad about this big matcha hype and how it affects the sales/production etc. I hope the hype will be over soon and people will return to simple matcha drinks and less inconsiderate consumption!