A cafe themed on traditional Chinese medicinal food and herbs in Ikebukuro-honcho, called ShizukuAR. Built around seasonal herbal teas and medicinal drinks that draw on the wisdom of Chinese herbal medicine, it is a small 9-seat specialty shop where you can experience Eastern medicine in modern daily life.
— Chinese herbal medicine, in a cup of tea
What ShizukuAR aims for is to blend teas and drinks based on traditional Chinese herbal formulas into modern life. Its signature suanmeitang is a summer drink with a balance of sourness and sweetness, based on a formula said to have been loved by successive Chinese emperors. Drinks you can choose by how you feel that day are lined up, such as a spleen-strengthening milk tea that borrows the herbal wisdom of caring for the digestive system. The ingredients are built mainly around carefully selected natural items, and the concept is to balance mind and body. There are also light items such as douhua (tofu pudding) and house-made cookies, so the shop is easy to enter even for people not familiar with herbal medicine or herbs.
In the season when hay fever bothers me.
A 30-second walk from Kita-Ikebukuro Station on the Tobu Tojo Line, this is a shop with the warmth of soft sunlight.
The tofu pudding (douhua) uses gelatin, so I had the natsume yokan — made of jujube, walnut, and agar — together with tea, for a refreshing experience 🌸✨
The tea also has original blends to enjoy, and the staff explains them in detail 💓
The yakuzen Sanmeitan is a yakuzen drink loved by Chinese emperors in the early 18th century, recreated in modern Japan. It uses plum, hawthorn, dried orange peel (chenpi), licorice, and rock sugar (beet sugar), slowly brewed and aged with natural water from the Northern Alps. It was additive-free and natural 🕊️🌿
I heard the yakuzen Ketsumeishi tea is good for "eye fatigue," so I'll try that next time 👀✨
A cozy yakuzen cafe with gluten-free sweets. It opened so that the tea served after acupuncture treatment at the Hotel Metropolitan Ikebukuro basement clinic could also be enjoyed outside.
The tea-ware and other furnishings are authentic — pleasant items, comfortable to spend time among. Felt perfect when wanting to spend a quiet, leisurely time. First-time visit was confirmed, and staff carefully explained the menu.
I thought sweets would just accompany tea, but there's a deluxe Afternoon Tea Set with assorted sweets too. As notes on yakuzen desserts: avoiding additives and artificial seasonings to pursue ingredients' natural deliciousness, mainly gluten-free and dairy-free — those with allergies, please ask anytime. So written on the menu.
While not all wheat-free items can be clearly confirmed on the menu and requires asking, most appeared to be gluten-free.
This time I had cookies and waffle that I could confirm were wheat-free.
■ Fushi Cookie
From the menu visual I had imagined moon-cake size, but it was a cute 3-4 cm size (lol). The texture was crispy-crumbly. The image may not convey, but the tea cups, teapot, all are small sized.
■ Gluten-Free Jujube Waffle
The menu said chewy texture, and I usually prefer crispy types, but even I want to repeat — that kind of chewy. They apparently spent quite a while reaching this texture. The accompanying ice cream wasn't too sweet, just right.
■ Sanhontan
Hearing it was sugar-free, I decided on this jujube tea, but it had quite solid sweetness. However, unlike the sticky-glossy sweetness one imagines from dates, this was clean.
Dried jujube and semi-dried dates differ greatly in sweetness, so I always think they're different things, and this case was no exception — the jujube garnish and the waffle jujube were cleaner than the typical date sweetness.
They reportedly struggled to find truly satisfactory, high-quality ingredients. I tried a single apricot kernel, and it had elegant flavor with bitterness — the exact bitterness needed for the apricot kernel flavor used here, they explained.
I couldn't try, but their popular item is herb tofu pudding — please do.
Retail of teas and jams was also available. Of course, additive-free!
