Japanese Tea Garden

The Japanese tea garden was constructed way back in 1895 following an idea by a Japanese American by the name of Makoto Hagiwara. Since he was an immigrant gardener, it is most likely that his work as a gardener was the source of his inspiration towards the idea. After approaching John McLaren and getting an approval, he personally supervised the transformation of the area into a permanent park before officially taking up responsibility as the park's caretaker from 1895 when it was completed to 1925.

The garden was called Japanese tea garden because the man behind the idea was Japanese by origin and the trees and birds as well as a number of aquatic lives including the famous Japanese gold fish were imported from Japan making it fully Japanese in terms of the environmental out look when it was completed. the garden however was faced with the fear of extinction when the world war broke out in 1942 in which the Americans fought on different sides leading to the executive order 9066 which ordered all Japanese immigrants to go into internment camps. The garden was thus converted into an oriental garden and effectively named the Oriental tea garden after which it collapsed due to mismanagement.

After the world war came to an end, a company known as the S &G Gump Company presented the garden with a huge bronze Buddha and plans to reinstate the tea garden to its original status as the Japanese tea garden gained momentum, it was eventually renamed the Japanese tea garden in 1952. The garden was built a fresh with several donations from different people including Japanese children who contributed to the purchase of a 9000 lb lantern that symbolized peace and friendship among future generations.

In the garden, there are lots of exciting sites to enjoy and beautiful species of plants and birds brought all the way from Japan. There is a tea restaurant that prides it self in the service of special tea. It is well known to serve all versions of tea ranging from special green Japanese tea to all other sorts of tea. The other delicacy that this tea restaurant is well known for is the cookies that it serves with the tea. There is a brand of cookies known as fortune cookies which are known to have been introduced from Japan from as early as 1878. The cookies are currently made by the benkyodo bakery in San Francisco.