Fuji-no-kuni Tea Museum (Shizuoka Tea Museum)

The Fuji-no-kuni Tea Museum, also known as the Shizuoka Tea Museum, sits amid the Makinohara plateau's tea plantations near Shimada, one of Japan's largest tea-growing regions and the source of a significant share of the country's Shizuoka-brand green tea. The museum's exhibits trace the cultivation, processing, and cultural history of Japanese tea, including displays of traditional tea utensils, a recreated Chinese-style teahouse garden, and demonstrations of tea ceremony practice available at set times. A tasting session, typically included with admission, lets visitors sample different grades of Shizuoka tea alongside seasonal wagashi sweets. Large windows and an outdoor terrace look out over the surrounding plantation rows, giving a direct view of the working landscape the museum interprets. A full visit including the exhibits and tea tasting takes 1.5 to 2 hours. The plateau is most visually striking in May during the first-flush tea harvest, when pickers work the rows by hand and the plantations are at their greenest, though the museum and its tasting sessions operate year-round regardless of harvest timing.