Hirosaki after the blossoms: coffee rooms, a Zen temple lane, and Western houses

By four in the afternoon in December, the light on Dote-machi (土手町) has gone amber. The windows of the coffee rooms above the shopfronts are fogged from the inside. In the vestibule at the top of a narrow stair, a row of snow boots drips onto newspaper, and past the curtain a siphon bubbles on the counter while someone reads the local paper over an emptied cup. Hirosaki (弘前), in western Aomori Prefecture, books out its hotels for two weeks each spring, when the castle moat turns pink. For the rest of the year it is a small former castle town where the same faces turn up at the bakery each morning, and it keeps its best rooms for people who come in the cold.

The town the blossoms hide

Hirosaki Park (弘前公園) surrounds Hirosaki Castle (弘前城), whose keep is one of the dozen in Japan to survive from the Edo period. While the stone wall beneath it is rebuilt, the keep has been jacked up and moved inward on rails, a process locals call hikiya (曳屋). Its position when you visit depends on how far the work has got, and the park office posts the current stage. Out of season the moats are still and the paths between the gates are almost empty. The view west is of Iwaki-san (岩木山), the single volcanic cone the Tsugaru plain is laid out around, white from late autumn.

The quiet does not make the town dull. Hirosaki was the seat of the Tsugaru (津軽) domain, and it still has more temples, churches and old coffee rooms than a city its size needs. You can cover most of it on foot in two unhurried days. All of it looks better with snow on the eaves.

Retainers' coffee on Dote-machi

Hirosaki calls itself a coffee town, and the claim goes back to the 1850s. Tsugaru samurai sent to guard the northern coast of Ezo, now Hokkaido, were issued coffee beans as medicine against a swelling sickness that was killing men through the winters. Several kissaten (喫茶店) in town now serve a reconstruction called hanshi no kōhī (藩士の珈琲), meaning "retainers' coffee." It is usually brewed the old way, with the grounds steeped in a cloth bag rather than dripped, and it comes out heavier and rounder than a modern pour-over. Each shop writes its own version on the menu, and some serve it only on certain days.

The best cluster runs from the station along the shopping street to Dote-machi, often up a flight of stairs or behind a small sign at a building's corner. The usual kissa manners apply. Order one drink per person, ask before photographing other customers, and expect some rooms to keep a smoking section. The tourist office hands out a map that rates the town's apple pies by sweetness, tartness and cinnamon. The pie was the town's answer to its orchards, and some kissaten are on the map.

弘前では、雪の日ほど喫茶店の窓が明るく見える。

Thirty-three temples and a black gate

Southwest of the castle, past a dark wooden gate called the Kuromon (黒門), the Zenrin-gai (禅林街) runs straight under tall cedars. Sōtō Zen temples line both sides, thirty-three in all. The Tsugaru lords gathered them here as a family burial ground, and also as a defensive cluster that an attacker would have had to fight through. In snow the lane is close to silent. The only sounds are a temple wife clearing a path and the crows in the cedar tops.

The lane ends at Chōshōji (長勝寺), the Tsugaru family temple. Its two-storey sanmon (三門) gate is a nationally designated cultural property, and the domain's mausoleums stand in the grounds behind it. Back toward town, near the Shin-teramachi (新寺町) temple quarter, Saishō-in (最勝院) has a five-storey pagoda, often described as the northernmost in Japan. It stands in an ordinary residential block, so you come on it without warning at the end of a side street.

Western houses by a local carpenter

In the Meiji era, a Hirosaki master carpenter named Horie Sakichi (堀江佐吉) taught himself the Western style from what he saw in Hakodate. He then built it back home in wood. His Aomori Bank Memorial Hall (青森銀行記念館) still stands near the castle's eastern side. The former Hirosaki City Library (旧弘前市立図書館), with its twin octagonal turrets, has been moved to Ōtemon Square (追手門広場). Beside it is the former Tōō Gijuku foreign teachers' residence (旧東奥義塾外人教師館), whose ground floor is now a café. Behind the city tourism hall, a garden of miniature models shows the buildings that were lost.

The Fujita Memorial Garden (藤田記念庭園) has a Western house with a tearoom where people eat apple pie by tall windows. The Japanese garden steps down the slope below, framed by Iwaki-san. Parts of the garden close for the winter while the house stays open, so check with the garden before you build an afternoon around it. Hirosaki's churches, Catholic and Protestant, are visible from the same streets.

Nakamachi hedges and a bowl of Tsugaru soba

North of the castle, Nakamachi (仲町) is a preserved samurai district of gravel lanes, clipped hedges and black wooden gates. A few houses, among them the former Iwata (旧岩田家) and Itō (旧伊東家) residences, open their rooms. You can see the sunken hearth and the thin paper walls these households wintered behind. Snow piles against the hedges here more neatly than anywhere else in town.

Lunch is Tsugaru soba (津軽そば). The buckwheat is mixed with soybean paste and rested overnight, which gives soft, short noodles. They are served in a broth built on yaki-boshi (焼き干し), grilled and dried sardines. Locals also order kayaki miso (貝焼き味噌), egg and miso cooked in a scallop shell over a flame. It is the Tsugaru version of comfort food, and some izakaya (居酒屋) list it without explanation.

Getting there, when to go, and the station mix-up

Take the Tōhoku Shinkansen to Shin-Aomori (新青森) and change to the JR Ōu Line (奥羽本線) for Hirosaki. These trains are not frequent, so check the JR East timetable before you book the shinkansen leg. From Akita, the limited express Tsugaru runs north along the same line. At Hirosaki Station, the tourist information desk has maps and current details for the loop bus to Dote-machi. Confirm the fare there or on the bus. Walking to the castle takes about half an hour.

For this side of the town, go between late October and March. October and November bring the apple harvest and red leaves. December to February bring snow, and in early February there is a snow-lantern festival in the castle park; the city's tourism site publishes the dates each year. Kissaten and small museums often close one weekday, and some close irregularly, so confirm hours with the venue or the Hirosaki city tourism office. Bring boots with real grip, because the pavements ice over.

The mistake to avoid is mixing up the two stations. Hirosaki Station (弘前駅) is the JR station. Chūō-Hirosaki (中央弘前), near Dote-machi, is the terminus of the small Kōnan Railway Ōwani Line (弘南鉄道大鰐線). Its future has been under discussion locally, so check with the operator before planning around it. Name the station you mean, in full, when you ask a taxi driver or a passer-by for directions.