On November 14th, 21 people from Tokyo American Club visited our brewery. This annual tour started in 2008, as a cross-cultural learning experience between Hakkaisan Brewery and the Tokyo American Club.

After their arrival, our Toji or Master Brewer Mr. Shigemitsu Nagumo explained the sake making process at our Hachikura museum. We also showed our brand new sake making video, which is dubbed in English.

During this presentation, we had lots of great questions from our guests such as:
“What is done with the rice powder you’re left will after rice milling?”
“Why are there three steps for making the main Moromi brewing mash?”

With this sake learning under our belts, we gave our guests a tour of our brewing facility known as the “Dai ni Kowa Gura”.

Next came a relaxing lunch! We served several local Uonuma style dishes. These dishes included chrysanthemum ohitashi, seasonal mushroom soup, spaghetti squash salad, and onigiri rice balls (made from freshly harvested rice!), grilled local char, pork belly kakuni and tenpura!

Do you know “tokonoma”?
The focal point of any traditional Japanese room is the decorative alcove known as the tokonoma.
Our President, Mr. Jiro Nagumo explained to our guests that a paper scroll wall hanging or flower arrangement is put in the tokonoma alcove, which is usually very simply decorated. Soon after that, he placed the american cookies he received from the guests as a gift on display in the tokonoma.

Some guests were puzzled and didn’t understand why he put the cookies in the Tokonoma. Mr. Nagumo explained that this expresses our appreciation for the gift. And with that, we had true cross-cultural learning!