Unspecified/General

Just north of downtown San Antonio in the historic Brackenridge Park, the Japanese Tea Garden is one of the city's most beloved hidden corners and a free public garden of rare beauty. The garden was created in 1919 in a disused 1840s quarry, where the City Parks Commissioner Ray Lambert envisioned a tranquil landscaped retreat that would make creative use of the dramatic steep stone walls left by decades of cement quarrying. The original gardens were laid out and tended by the Japanese-American Kimi Eizo Jingu and his family, who lived on site in a small house at the entrance, operating a small tea house and welcoming visitors. Jingu's death in 1938 and the outbreak of the Second World War brought a sad chapter for the garden: the Jingu family was forced to leave during the wartime hysteria, the garden was renamed the Chinese Tea Garden and the tea house closed for many years. In 1984 a delegation of the Jingu's surviving family members returned to the garden for a rededication ceremony, the original name was restored and a plaque honouring the Jingu family was installed at the entrance. Today the garden is a lush oasis. A series of stone pathways wind among carefully tended bamboo groves, koi ponds, water lilies and cypress trees, with a sixty-foot artificial waterfall, several arched stone bridges and a small Japanese pavilion lending the landscape its distinctively Asian character. The original 1920s torii gate of unpainted timber stands at the entrance. The on-site Jingu House Cafe operates from the restored 1919 tea house, serving Asian-inspired light meals, sandwiches, salads and a selection of teas in a setting that overlooks the central pond. Free to enter, open from sunrise to sunset and easily combined with the surrounding Brackenridge Park, the San Antonio Zoo and the Witte Museum, the gardens offer a peaceful, locally cherished alternative to the city's busier downtown attractions. The adjoining Sunken Garden Theater, an outdoor amphitheatre carved into the surrounding quarry walls in 1930, hosts free public concerts during the warmer months and is also part of the larger Brackenridge Park complex. Its dramatic stone walls and natural acoustics make it a particularly memorable setting for live music. Annual events at the garden include the popular Cherry Blossom Festival each March, lantern-lit evening viewings during the autumn and a Lunar New Year celebration in February.

Type: Outdoors

Address: 3853 North St. Mary's Street, San Antonio, TX, United States

Telephone: 210-212-4814

Website: saparksfoundation.org/japanese-tea-garden

Opening Date: 01/01/1919