Ohara Onsen Yumoto Kyo no Minshuku Ohara no Sato

This family-run inn (minshuku) stands in the mountain hamlet of Kusao in Ohara, northeastern Kyoto, a short walk from Jakko-in temple where Kenreimon-in retired after the fall of the Taira clan. Ohara Onsen itself is young: the spring was opened in the summer of 2004 and named Murasaki no Yu, or the Purple Bath, after the area long known as the village of red shiso and after purple, one of the traditional colours of Kyoto. Ohara no Sato has been in business for more than forty years and is known as the birthplace of miso-nabe, a hot pot made with miso the family has brewed by hand for over a century.

The water is classified as a simple hot spring (hypotonic, weakly alkaline, low temperature). It is pumped from 1,175 metres underground at roughly 119 litres per minute, emerging at 27.9C with a pH of 8.15. Colourless and clear with a faint hydrogen sulphide scent, it contains 252.6 mg of bicarbonate ions and 92.0 mg of sodium ions per kilogram, along with 25.1 units of radon, close to the threshold for a certified radioactive spring and unusual for the Kinki region. Because the source is cool, the water is heated and circulated before it reaches the tubs; no water is added to dilute it.

Bathing is split between a large bath and a medium bath, each with an indoor tub and an open-air tub. The signature bath is an outdoor goemon-buro, a cast-iron cauldron bath about two metres across that seats up to four people, set among the trees. The inn has 26 guest rooms for up to 120 people and free parking for 20 cars. Day-use bathing is offered only on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays, and only as part of a meal course starting at 3,500 yen, plus a 100 yen bathing tax.