Saga Onsen Ureshino Yuuzen

Saga Onsen Ureshino Yuuzen is a distinguished ryokan at Ureshino Onsen in Ureshino City, Saga Prefecture, one of Japan's most celebrated hot spring resorts whose bicarbonate-alkaline spring waters — famous for their extraordinary pH of 9.4, among the most strongly alkaline natural springs in Japan — produce a distinctive silky, almost soapy quality that Japanese bathers describe as the finest bijin-no-yu (beautiful water) for skin care in the entire country, documented in written records since at least the Nara period when the springs were recommended in the Man'yoshu poetry anthology. The Ureshino area is also Japan's third-largest tea-producing region, where the rolling hillside plantations of Ureshino green tea and the distinctive champagne-colored, richly flavored Kamairicha pan-fried tea process produce one of Japan's most distinctive regional tea styles that is served at every ryokan in the spa town as the perfect complement to the skin-softening mineral waters. Bathing in the extraordinarily smooth alkaline waters of Ureshino at the Yuuzen ryokan, surrounded by the aroma of fresh green tea and the traditional Japanese inn culture of handmade tofu, Saga beef, and local ceramic arts, provides one of Japan's most sensually complete and regionally distinctive ryokan hot spring experiences.