British company Victoria and Albert is offering a Japanese-style soaking tub, called the Sorrento.

You desire submersion, a sinking into hot water, envelopment in warmth.

You draw a bath and sit, but the water rises only to your abdomen. So you slide, down, down. Farther. And liquid heat finally caresses your neck.

Aaah. Feels great.

But then you’re uncomfortable.

You can’t read, you can’t sip your frigid pale ale. You can’t do anything but just lie there, entombed in bubbles.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Trendy Japanese-style bathtubs deliver up-to-the-chin immersion without your having to stretch out and slide. Instead of long and shallow, they go deep and narrow.

“They’re so comfortable,” says Sandra Clinger, an interior decorator in Denver who installed one at her ranch in Gunnison County. “You take a bath right up to your shoulders.”

Increasingly, Americans are snapping up the tubs, which can be installed either level with the floor or jutting up from the ground and requiring steps to get inside.

“My firm probably does 50 to 75 custom homes a year, and I would say 70 percent of my clients bring that up, the notion of a Japanese soaking tub,” says Stephen Sparn, the president of Stephen Sparn Architects, in Boulder. “Different manufacturers are now providing for this demand. It definitely is a trend.”

Victoria & Albert Baths, a high-end tub manufacturer based in England, recently introduced the Sorrento, its stand-alone answer to the Japanese soaking tub.

“I think the bathtub these days is no longer about getting clean, it’s about creating a luxury spa environment in your house,” said Edward Taylor, president of the U.S. division of the company.

“It’s almost like functional art these days. People are spending several thousand dollars on incredible shower units, and that’s what you use every day to clean yourself. But the tub is about making a statement, and it’s something to relax in.”

Among the many long and broad whirlpool ovals freckling the floor at Euro Bath + Tile, in Denver, stands the Fuji, a plunging bucket set in a square, tiled foundation.

And coming soon to the showroom, the Ofuro Japanese soaking tub, by Sonoma Cast Stone Corp., sturdy in concrete, earthy, appropriate for modern, but also fitting for a more country look.

Want a Japanese-style tub? Unless you are extremely handy, don’t try installing one yourself. The tubs typically hold more than 100 gallons of water, with all of the weight concentrated in a tight footprint. You can’t just plop it down on a bathroom floor and fill ’er up.

Unless it’s a stand-alone version like the Sorrento, it demands some sort of frame. In addition, the quantity of hot water these tubs draw taxes some water heaters. And while they take up less floor space, they also usually rise much higher into the room.

All of which says introducing a Japanese bath to your home might be a bit complicated.

And given their water demands, these tubs may present an ethical challenge, although the American approach to using them might soften the moral quandary.

“You probably don’t soak every day,” says Sparn. “The American lifestyle is so fast-paced, it’s reserved for a special experience.”

In Japan, baths are separate from showers and toilets, says Leonard Koren, an artist and the author of How to Take a Japanese Bath.

“Cleansing is the secondary aspect of the bath,” he says. “You wash your body outside of the tub. The soaking is the relaxation aspect of the bathing ritual. You don’t want to pollute the clean water with your dirt.”

Sparn builds custom homes up and down the Front Range of Colorado, with the bulk of them peppering Boulder, the home of the Eastern-religion-inspired Naropa Institute and a density of Asian-influenced institutions, organizations and businesses.

Among the set that builds custom homes in Boulder, the dedicated bathing room is catching on.

“I think people are looking more and more at the whole Japanese lifestyle, where bathing is more than just getting clean,” Sparn says. “With the soaking tub, you go in there when you are already clean. You go in there for introspection, for relaxation. It’s cozy.”