Polish the rice.
Half the grain can go before anything is brewed. Ginjo starts at 60% remaining, daiginjo at 50%.
Rice · polishing ratio 50–70% · 2–3 daysFrom the Kura · 雫 Shizuku, drop by drop
No press, just time.
Shizuku sake isn't pressed. The mash hangs in cloth bags and drips under its own weight, a drop at a time. Brewers keep it for their best bottles. Twelve years in sake has felt a lot like that.
- 2014Starts in sake
- 2015·
- 2016·
- 2017·
- 2018·
- 2019·
- 2020Certified Sake Sommelier, SSA
- 2021·
- 2022Kurabito at Kitsukura, Saku, Nagano
- 2023International Kikisake-shi, SSIHelps lead Sake Bottle Share (SBS)
- 2024Director and Head Sommelier, SAKE StreetSake Scholar
- 2025International Sakasho, SSISpeaker, Sake Matsuri Singapore
- 2026Twelve years in
Rice to glass.
Rice to glass
How sake is made, in eight moves.
Scroll, and the brew moves with you. Stop, and it holds.
Grow the mould.
Aspergillus oryzae on steamed rice, about two days in the warm koji room. It makes the enzymes that turn starch into sugar.
Koji-kin · 48 h · 30–40 °CSteam, don’t boil.
Rice is steamed in a koshiki so the outside stays firm and the inside turns soft. That texture is what the koji can work into.
Koshiki · 40–60 min · live steamLet it ferment.
Koji, steamed rice, water and yeast ferment together. Starch becomes sugar and sugar becomes alcohol in the same tank, over three weeks or more.
Moromi · 3–5 weeks · 5–15 °CPress it.
The mash is pressed to separate sake from the kasu. Slow in a fune, slower still drip by drip as shizuku.
Fune · yabuta · shizukuJudge the clarity.
Blue rings on white porcelain show colour and clarity at a glance. This cup is the janome, and the motif of this site.
Janome · 180 ml · white porcelainNose it.
Swirl, lift, decide. The glass changes what you smell, so the same sake tastes different from an ochoko, a wine glass and a masu.
Aroma · ginjo-ka · glasswareSteel beside cedar.
A modern kura keeps the temperature. The rest is still people: washing, steaming, stirring, tasting. That is where I learned it.
Tanks · 3,000–10,000 L · temperature controlledSaku, Nagano. October 2022.
Kitsukura · Saku, Nagano · October 2022
A few days as a kurabito.
From the 7am morning routine to the making of the shubo. The fermentation takes months, so my part ended once the shubo was made.
Where the season starts
An altar in the brewery yard at Kitsukura in Saku, set out before the season’s first work.
A priest before a paddle
A Shinto priest blesses the kura, the tanks and the people before the first work of the season.
The day starts together
Breakfast and morning exercises with the whole brewing team, then a blessing before work begins.
Checked by hand first
Polished rice, inspected before anything else: the polish, the moisture, whole grains against broken ones.
The steam test
A pinch of steamed rice pressed flat between the fingers. Firm outside, soft inside, or the steam was wrong.
The koshiki opens
The lid comes off and the room disappears. What the steam did decides what the koji can do.
By the spadeful
Steamed rice comes out of the koshiki with a wooden spade, and it has to move while it is still hot.
Spread by hand
Steamed rice is broken up and spread across cloth to cool to the right temperature.
Under the cloth
Koji rice rests wrapped in cloth, and the cloth comes off to check it. This is where sake’s sugars begin.
The mother of sake
Koji, steamed rice, water and yeast come together as the shubo, the starter that carries the whole batch. The thermometer is the whole conversation.
The paddle
Stirring the tank with the kai. Slow, even, and heavier than it looks.
The one we worked
Tank 164. The moromi in it fermented for weeks after we left; my part ended when the shubo was made.
From the cup
Kitsukura’s own, from the ochoko, at the end of the day. Every glass is the work of many hands.
Three days, frame by frame · 21–23 October 2022
The stay, in thirty frames.
“Let’s continue to work together.”
Sake, explained from the rice up.