- Wazuka grows about half of Kyoto Prefecture’s tea, and its farms run the area’s only hands-on picking and matcha-milling experiences: Obubu’s Guided Tea Tour (19,800 yen, 4 hours), Obubu’s Matcha Factory Tour (30,000 yen, 2 hours, max 5 people) and d:matcha’s Organic Farm Tour with tea picking (35,000 yen, 4 hours).
- Hand-picking runs in two windows: the spring flush from roughly late April through June, and an autumn window from September to early October; exact days shift with leaf growth and weather.
- Book directly with the farms at least one week ahead – tours sell out, payment is taken at booking, and d:matcha refuses travel-agency reservations outright.
- Without a car, plan transport first: the JR Nara Line to Kamo Station plus the roughly hourly Nara Kotsu bus 66, or the farms’ own shuttles (d:matcha from Ishiyama Station at 8:45am, 1,500 yen each way; Obubu from Kyoto Station Hachijo-guchi and JR Kizu Station on reserved tickets).
- Wazuka’s tea fields are private farmland – you cannot walk into the rows on your own, which is exactly why the farm-run tours exist.
Why Wazuka Is Where You Pick Tea
Uji makes the famous cup, but most of the leaf is grown an hour south-east of Kyoto city in Wazuka, a valley town of terraced tea rows that has farmed tea for about 800 years and today produces roughly half of Kyoto Prefecture’s crop. The Kyoto tourism office lists it as the prefecture’s first designated Scenic Property, and the view lives up to the paperwork: tea hedges climb the hillsides in combed green stripes right up to the cedar line.
The catch for travelers is that every one of those photogenic rows is private farmland. Entry on your own is prohibited, and there is no ticket booth that lets you in. The only way to stand inside the hedges – let alone pick from them or step onto a working tencha line – is with the farmers themselves. Two English-speaking, farmer-run operations dominate: Kyoto Obubu Tea Farms and d:matcha Kyoto, both in Wazuka. If your interest is sleeping among the fields rather than working them for an afternoon, that side of town is covered in our guide to matcha farm stays in Wazuka; this page owns the day experiences: picking, milling and tasting.
The Three Experiences Compared
Prices below were verified on each operator’s own booking page in September 2026. All three run in English and must be booked online in advance.
| Experience | Price (per person) | Duration | Group size | Tea picking? | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Obubu Guided Tea Tour | 19,800 yen (tax incl.) | 4 hrs (11:00-15:00) | Up to 18 | Field visit and factory; picking not the focus | First-timers who want the full farm story plus a 9-tea tasting and lunch |
| Obubu Matcha Factory & Tea Farm Tour | 30,000 yen (tax incl.) | 2 hrs (10:00 or 13:15) | Max 5, ages 10+ | No – focused on stone milling | Matcha obsessives who want inside an active milling room |
| d:matcha Organic Farm Tour & Tasting | 35,000 yen | 4 hrs (9:30-13:30) | Small group (up to 30 on some departures) | Yes – you pick leaves that are fried as tempura for your lunch | Travelers who want hands in the hedge: picking, milling and a farm-to-table meal |
Obubu Guided Tea Tour – the classic introduction
Kyoto Obubu Tea Farms runs its Guided Tea Tour most days from 11:00am to 3:00pm for 19,800 yen per person including tax. The format is a welcome tea and introduction, a drive up to the mountain tea fields (expect a short, steep 3-5 minute path), a walk through a working sencha factory, a farm lunch built around tea dishes – vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free options are offered – and then the heart of it: an interactive tasting of 9 locally made teas, from everyday houjicha and genmaicha to premium sencha, with a hands-on seminar on brewing sencha and preparing matcha. Children under 6 join free; older children pay the adult rate. The tour runs even in heavy rain as long as public transport is moving, and a private version can be arranged by email for groups that cannot manage the field path.
Obubu Matcha Factory & Tea Farm Tour – inside the milling room
Obubu’s two-hour matcha tour is the specialist option: 30,000 yen per person, twice a day at 10:00am and 1:15pm, capped at 5 participants aged 10 and over. You change into a white lab coat – the factory operates under food-safety (HACCP) rules, and every participant signs a hygiene pledge at booking – then watch tencha become powder on traditional stone mills before tasting ceremonial matcha, seasonal matcha, tencha leaf and kukicha. Over 80 percent of the tour is indoors, which makes it the best wet-weather pick in town. If matcha grades and terminology are new to you, read our guide to matcha first – the tour lands much harder when you already know what tencha is.
d:matcha Organic Farm Tour – the one with real picking
The d:matcha farm tour (35,000 yen, 9:30am-1:30pm) is the experience to book if picking is the point. Founder Daiki walks you through the company’s organically farmed fields in the Yubune district, past the hillside Hakusan shrine, and puts you to work hand-picking leaves the traditional way. Your harvest comes back to the cafe and is fried into crisp tea-leaf tempura for lunch. In between you visit the in-house tencha factory – d:matcha bills it as the only tea tour in Wazuka that opens an active tencha facility, and during harvest season hundreds of kilograms of leaf run through it daily – and try stone-milling tencha into matcha yourself. The tasting compares three single-origin organic matcha and three sencha cultivars, guided by certified Japanese tea instructors, and the farm-to-table lunch (tea-infused dishes such as houjicha tantan noodles, sencha pasta or matcha-wasabi curry on the tour’s listed menu) closes it out. The Kansai region’s official tourism directory listed the tour as updated in late August 2026, with a minimum of one participant and meal accommodations available.
Booking: Lead Times, Payment and Cancellation
All three experiences take reservations only through the operators’ own websites, with payment by card at the moment of booking. Both farms recommend booking at least a week out, and both publish strict cancellation ladders.
| Rule | Obubu tours | d:matcha tour |
|---|---|---|
| How to book | Calendar on obubutea.com; Stripe payment confirms the seat | Product page on dmatcha.com; direct bookings only |
| Recommended lead time | At least 1 week (some dates sell out) | Availability is strictly limited by the farming schedule |
| Full refund window | More than 14 days before | Within 24 hrs of booking, or up to 7 days before |
| Partial refund | 80% at 14-7 days; 50% at 6-3 days | None – inside 7 days bookings are final |
| Agencies | Direct booking via site | Travel-agency reservations refused; guests must book personally |
One honest budgeting note: these are premium, farmer-led experiences, and the pricing reflects a matcha boom that has pushed demand – and Kyoto tencha auction prices – to records. Budget 20,000-35,000 yen per person for the experience itself, plus about 2,000-3,000 yen round-trip transport, before any tea shopping. There is no meaningful walk-up market: without a reservation you will be looking at the hedges from the road.
Getting to Wazuka from Kyoto
Wazuka has no train station, which is why it still looks the way it does. You have three realistic options. First, public transport: take the JR Nara Line from Kyoto Station to Kamo Station, then the Nara Kotsu bus 66 toward Wazuka-cho Kosugi from the west exit – about 15 minutes to the Wazuka Yamanoie stop in the town center. Buses run roughly once an hour or less, so screenshot the return timetable before you leave the stop. Second, farm shuttles: d:matcha operates its own shuttle from Ishiyama Station North Gate in Otsu (a short JR ride from Kyoto), departing 8:45am sharp, no advance reservation required, 1,500 yen per person each way paid at the farm. Obubu sells reserved direct-shuttle tickets with stops at Kyoto Station Hachijo-guchi and JR Kizu Station, bookable until 7:00am on the day of travel; the shuttle is open even to visitors not joining a tour. Third, taxi or rental car – but note d:matcha’s warning that taxis are extremely scarce in Wazuka and cannot be summoned on-site, so any taxi exit must be pre-booked. Wazuka pairs naturally with the wider matcha heartland; our Kyoto and Uji tea travel guide covers how the whole region fits together over two or three days.
Best Time to Go
Tea picking in Wazuka runs in two windows tied to the harvest. The main one is the spring first flush, from roughly the third week of April through June, when the new leaves that become the year’s best sencha and tencha are plucked. A second window opens from September to early October around the autumn flush. Between and around those windows the tours still run – fields, factory and tastings do not stop – but hands-on picking depends on leaf growth and weather, so if picking specifically is your goal, aim for May, June or late September and confirm with the operator when you book. May is the sweet spot: harvest machinery is running, the hills are at their brightest green, and factory floors that sit quiet in winter are processing leaf daily. Winter visits still get the milling rooms and tastings, and the Obubu matcha tour in particular loses nothing indoors.
Tips for First-Timers
Wear closed shoes and long trousers – the field paths are steep, occasionally muddy, and the Kansai tourism listing for the d:matcha tour recommends exactly that. Bring sun protection in the picking months; the terraces have no shade. Carry some cash for shuttle fares and cafe extras, though the tours themselves are paid online. Photograph freely, but stay on the paths: the rows are working crop, not a backdrop. If you plan to keep whisking at home after the trip, our step-by-step guide to making matcha at home covers the ratios and technique the farm tastings will introduce. And book the experience before you book the hotel – tour availability, not accommodation, is the binding constraint in a town this small.
Alternatives and Nearby Experiences
If the farm tours are sold out or the budget says no, Wazukacha Cafe in the town center – five minutes on foot from the Wazuka Yamanoie bus stop, open 10:00am to 5:00pm – runs reservation-required matcha-making and matcha-art sessions and stocks more than 300 teas grown in Wazuka, making it the easiest walk-in-adjacent option in town. Closer to the city, Uji offers tea sightseeing without the bus logistics; our Uji tea fields day trip guide covers that circuit. And if what you actually want is the formal bowl rather than the farm – tatami, whisk, and a host in kimono – that is a different experience entirely, mapped in our guide to Kyoto tea ceremony experiences.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does a Wazuka tea picking experience cost?
Farm-run Wazuka experiences cost 19,800 to 35,000 yen per person as of September 2026. Obubu’s 4-hour Guided Tea Tour is 19,800 yen, its 2-hour matcha factory tour is 30,000 yen, and d:matcha’s 4-hour organic farm tour with hand-picking is 35,000 yen. All include tastings; the two 4-hour tours include lunch.
When is tea picking season in Wazuka?
Tea picking in Wazuka runs from roughly late April through June for the spring flush, and again from September to early October. Exact dates shift each year with leaf growth and weather. Farm tours operate outside those windows too, but the hands-on picking portion depends on the harvest, so confirm when booking.
Do you need to book Wazuka tea experiences in advance?
Yes – advance online booking is required for every farm experience in Wazuka. Both Obubu and d:matcha recommend reserving at least one week ahead, take full payment at booking, and have limited availability set by the farming schedule. d:matcha additionally refuses travel-agency bookings, so reserve directly on the operators’ websites.
How do you get to Wazuka from Kyoto without a car?
Take the JR Nara Line from Kyoto Station to Kamo Station, then Nara Kotsu bus 66 about 15 minutes to Wazuka Yamanoie; buses run about hourly. Alternatively, use the farm shuttles: d:matcha runs one from Ishiyama Station at 8:45am for 1,500 yen each way, and Obubu sells reserved shuttle tickets from Kyoto Station Hachijo-guchi.
Can you walk into the Wazuka tea fields on your own?
No – Wazuka’s tea fields are private working farmland and entry on your own is prohibited. You can photograph the terraces from roads and designated viewpoints, but standing inside the rows, picking leaves or entering a factory requires joining a farm-run tour with Obubu or d:matcha, which is the main reason the tours exist.