Tradtional Plant Medicine Knowledge in Uda City

A historical herbal village know as Uda City is located 1.5 hours away from Nara City and it's a place where the knowledge of traditional plant medicine is still practiced, preserved, and passed on.

Uda City in Nara used to be known as Akino in historical records and the village was renowned to harvest medicinal herbs and use them for traditional healing. Back in 611, Empress Suiko is reported to have visited the region to forage for herbs that had medicinal properties. Akino is also an area that produces mercury, and so it's told that its people believe the power of medicinal plants is stronger around the location of mercury.

The area has many historical buildings that have been unchanged since the Edo Period and this ancient landscape has been designated one of the Important Preservation Districts in Japan. The importance and role medicinal herbs plays in this historic area is prevalent with Kusuri-no-Yakata (the museum of medicine) and Morino Kyuyakuen (medicinal herb garden) being among the buildings. On this tour, you can gain a knowledge of wild herbs and taste different types of Japanese herbal tea from the herb garden.

Other places of note in the area is several breweries that produce sake and shoyu (soy sauce) where you can gain a deeper understanding of the process of fermentation that's so important to the Japanese cuisine.