OK, so this is my first summer in Japan. I knew it would be hot, but I didn’t realize it would be h-o-t. And humid. And uncomfortable. Although the summer weather is shoganai (a wonderful Japanese word that means “it can’t be helped”), one thing we can do to cool down is drink some chilled sake. Chilled sake is delicious, but Hakkaisan raises the bar with their limited summer sake release.

It is only for a limited time – from June to August only – that Hakkaisan begins selling their Tokubetsu Junmai Namazume Genshu. Unique to this sake is that Hakkaisan recommends serving it at an ice-cold temperature in a small glass right from the freezer.

This near freezing creates a super crisp and refreshingly brisk sip of sake, with a texture that can border on a sake slushie. It is a perfectly delicious antidote to any summer heat wave.

If you chose to serve this sake gently chilled and not ice cold, you’ll enjoy other flavors. I find the taste to have a clean and lightly dry rice flavor with a bright freshness. A crisp finish leaves you wanting another sip.

This sake is a “tokubestu Junmai”. Junmai is “pure rice style” meaning no added alcohol. Tokubetsu means special, and this sake has a luxurious rice milling rate of 55% – much lower and more premium than other Junmai-grade sakes. This sake is also namazume. That means the sake was pasteurized just once after pressing, not twice as is usual with most sakes. This single pasteurization gives the sake a fresh and buoyant edge. Finally this sake is also a genshu – undiluted with water weighing in at 17.5% alcohol. Genshu sakes have more body on the palate and generally can stand up to richer foods. Hakkaisan is known for clean and crisp sakes, so this genshu is gentle and approachable.

Let’s take a look at the stats for this sake:
Alcohol 17.5%
sake meter value ±0.0
acidity 1.5
amino acid 1.4
koji rice used Gohyakumangoku
brewing rice used Yukinosei, Yamadanishiki, Todorokiwase
rice-polishing ratio 55%
yeast Kyokai No. 1001, Kyokai No. 1801

Hakkaisan Tokubestu Junmai Namazume Genshu is not for sale in the States, but if you do visit Japan in the steamy summer months, I hope you get a chance to try it ice cold. Let’s stay cool this summer!

Since I arrived in Niigata last year, I have been eating a lot of sansai (山菜) which means simply “mountain vegetables”. They are a staple food here and the product of foraging by hand in the mountain-side forests. In this snow bound and mountainous area, these vegetables are eaten soon after they are collected, but also preserved and enjoyed all year round. Sansai are famous for having a bitter taste. Their natural bitterness is actually a defense mechanism against animals nibbling on them.

The locals here have developed a taste for the bitter greens and they are served in many ways, the most popular being flash fried as tempura, blanched and serve with a soy sauce and also preserved as pickles. The taste is indeed bitter, but I’ve come to love sansai. Believe it or not, the bitterness is actually a perfect compliment to sake, too!

I was surprised when I received an invitation to go Sansai picking myself. A local guide heard about my love of Niigata mountain vegetables and offered to take me to his favorite spot for picking mountain vegetables. My only instruction was to wear boots and gloves. As we were driving to the mountain, my guide told me we would be picking only one kind of plant that day, zenmai (薇) known in english as cinnamon fern or by it’s scientific name Osmunda Japonica. I had never heard of this plant before, so I was wondering how I would recognize it in the wild.

When we arrived on the mountain, we began climbing up and within three minutes we saw our first zenmai. I quickly learned that they were the first growth of a moisture and shade loving wild fern and they look very much like an extra large fiddlehead fern covered in a kind of mossy spiderweb. It doesn’t sound appetizing, but I’m assured they are delicious. I was outfitted with an apron with a deep pocket and a backpack and away we went.

As we started to climb up my guide would expertly spot the Zenmai from far away. We would snap the stems about 2/3rds of the way down and I would collect the stems in my pouch. There were also some guidelines on what not to pick. If the zenmai were too small, we left them alone to grow for next year. I also learned that the Zenmai are only edible when they are in the fiddlehead fern shape. If they had begun to open and spread their fern leaves, I was to leave them alone.

As we marched up the mountain side, the slope got gradually steeper and steeper. When my apron’s pouch was full of Zenmai, I would wrap them in a cloth and load them into my backpack. This foraging became a fun game and spotting the ferns on the mountainside became easier and easier.

After climbing up for 90 minutes, we decided to make our way back down. My backpack was loaded full of zenmai. I learned that my guide usually hikes to the top of the mountain when foraging… that would have been 3 hours up and 3 hours back down! Even though I was wiped out, I was just given the beginner’s course! I’ll need to do some training if I’m going to mountain climbing again.

When the day was over I was impressed with our haul. If you know what to look for the mountain can really provide bounty. The zenmai that I collected will be cooked and preserved for eating next year – can’t wait to try them! Think sansai foraging might be a brand new hobby!

In Japan, most breweries make sake on a seasonal schedule. That means production for a given Brewing Year (B.Y.) usually starts in October and runs through the time of rice planting in the late spring or early summer. When the Brewing Year is winding down, there are some ceremonies and gatherings to mark the end of the season and recognize all effort and hard work of the brewers.

As the brewing season is drawing to a close, there is that day when you steam your last batch of rice. This is the day that you finish the additions of rice and koji to your last batch of sake. Of course fermentation will continue for another month on all the tanks you’ve started, but from this point on, no new tanks will be created and no more rice will be steamed. “Koshiki Taoshi” means to knock over the rice steaming vat. The idea behind Koshiki Taoshi is to tip over the rice steaming vat for cleaning as it won’t be used any more this season.

When I arrived at the event, I was surprised to see everyone dressed in a serious dark suit. I was used to seeing all the brewers in their white brewery uniform, but now I was seeing everyone dress up in civilian clothes. The mood was serious at first with everyone sitting quietly waiting for the official start. Once the event began we first had greetings and speeches. Hakkaisan President Jiro Nagumo started by thanking everyone for their hard work this year and talking about the Hakkaisan company spirit. Then Mr. Shigemitsu Nagamo, the Toji or master brewer, also thanked everyone for their hard work and dedication this year. Next was our Kanpai or toast. This was the signal that the party could begin. For this occasion, all the brewers were able to enjoy Hakkaisan’s Special Daiginjo sake. This is an ultra-premium sake not sold to the public, and it was a chance for all the brewers to taste the gold standard sake produced by Hakkaisan. This sake embodies what we try to achieve as a brewery.

Everyone was able to enjoy a great meal and the Special Daiginjo served chilled and warm as well. Hakkaisan beer was also flowing! It is a custom in Japan for the new employees to go around and pour sake for their superiors. This is a great way to foster communication and it really get people talking to one another and in the mood to celebrate. It is also a time to go around and say “thank you” to any co-workers that especially helped you during the year.

Next came a really exciting moment. All of the sake brewers and this year’s new employees gathered at the front of the room to sing a “sakauta” (酒歌) or sake brewing song. Traditionally, these songs were sung in the brewery to keep time while mixing the tank or some other such task. The songs have a driving rhythm to keep brewers mixing the vat at the same pace. At Hakkaisan, this song is not used in the brewery everyday, but is still performed at special events to keep a connection to this piece of sake culture alive. It was fantastic to see!

The Koshiki Taoshi event is not the end of brewing, but more a sign of things winding down for the year. Everyone enjoyed the party, but for most, it was back to work and back to brewing the very next day!

If you think about making sake, where does the process really start? If you want to go to the very beginning, you need to look at growing sake rice. I recently had an opportunity to visit a Niigata rice farm and try my own hand at planting sake rice. I was invited to an event known as Taue (田植え) aka “rice planting”. This is mostly done by mechanized tractor these days, but I was going to try planting rice by hand the old fashioned way at a local Niigata Taue community event. Kids, parents, office workers, veteran farmers and one displaced New Yorker would plant the whole field. If I was going to fall on my behind in the mud, there would be lots of people to see.

Baby Steps
Sake rice does not start as a seed in the rice paddy. Rice is first grown from seed to seedling in trays filled with growth medium inside of a hothouse. This allow farmers to water and feed the seedlings and protects the tiny rice plants until they are big enough to be planted in the paddy.

The Gear

Now that we had the seedlings ready to go, it was time to get suited up. I forgot to bring my rice planting rubber boots from New York, so I borrowed a pair. The boots closest to my size were thigh-high hip waders that tied onto my belt with some string. I was also issued a pointed rice paddy hat, towel for my neck and a plastic bucket to wear like a satchel to hold my rice seedlings.

The local professionals who came to help came dressed and were completely covered from head to toe. I thought this was a little extreme but then I learned the hard way that the water in the paddy acts like a mirror and will reflect the sun to give you a light sunburn from two directions!

Before we started planting, the paddy needed to be prepared. To give us a guideline for planting, the farmers roll a wooden template across the mud to create a grid pattern. this is rolled back and forth down the entire length of the paddy. This grid allows us to plant our seedlings in the corner of each grid square and keep everything aligned and spaced perfectly. Ingenious!

Let’s Get Planting

I was given some instructions on how to plant. First, grab a chunk of rice seedlings in your left hand. Then using your right hand, break off a little bundle of 3 seedlings. Stick the seedlings into the mud at the corner of the grid. Repeat and repeat! I quickly learned that only using your right hand to plant is a good idea is it quickly becomes covered in mud. After a few rows I was feeling confident and I ventured further into the paddy. Then I began to sink.

Soon the mud was up by my knees and it was hard to walk or move forward. Trying to pull one leg out of the mud to step forward threw me off balance and made me wobble, but luckily, I didn’t fall in front of 50 people. I planted all the rice I had in my basket, 3 stalks at a time until it was empty. Then I found myself stranded in the middle of the paddy with a long walk back to the edge. Walking slow and stilted like Frankenstein, I slowly made it back to safety! The first thing I did was squat down to rinse my hands in some running water. The mud on the back of my thigh high boots managed to get on my behind that way, so even though I didn’t fall, I still wound up looking like I did.

With everyone helping, the field was planted in about an hour. I thought it would take three times as long. After the planting was done, the rice field is flooded with water. This keeps the seedlings protected and inhibits the growth of weeds. Looking out at the finished paddy, I couldn’t help feel a sense of accomplishment, even though I only planted a small part. The lines of rice were not as laser straight as a machine could do it, but I think doing things by hand can be its own reward. The next step in my farming career? I’m heading back into the mud this September to harvest!

I’ve attended a lot of sake events over the years, but few have been as fun and creatively organized as Craft Sake Week at the Roppongi Hills Arena (April 7-16). This event, spearheaded by soccer star and sake fan Hideyoshi Nakata, started last year but has come back bigger and better for 2017. Over a 10 day run, the event features a total of 100 brewers pouring their products and interacting directly with consumers.

Each of the 10 days of craft sake week has a unique theme. I was pouring sake on April 12 which was “Sparkling Sake Day”. For fans of Happo-shu (sparking sake), this must have been heaven to have so many bubbles to choose from. Hakkaisan featured three sakes: Awa Junmai Ginjo Sparkling, Nigori Sparkling and the Snow-Aged Junmai Ginjo 3 Years. I think all of these sakes were popular, but it was especially fun to introduce guests to our new clear sparking sake, “Awa”. This new sake is made using an in-bottle secondary fermentation and similar to fine sparkling wines, the sake is also disgorged by hand, creating a clear sake with a fine grained bubble and gentle sweetness.

To participate in Craft Sake Week, guests purchase coins that can be used for sake or for the onsite gourmet food trucks. Sakes cost from 1 to 3 coins and guests are issued a sake glass and can wander and try sake at their own pace. Tables and seats are spread around the open air arena and an expansive live cherry blossom installation designed by architect Sou Fujimoto adds a beautiful backdrop and creates and immersive Hanami (cherry blossom viewing) experience. It’s beautiful in the day and evening.

In addition to being able to talk to a variety of Brewers and to try a wide range of sakes, chatting with other sake fans is also really fun. The crowd was an international group with a lot of non-Japanese in attendance, too. It was great to see so many people enjoying sake together. While the sake and food were amazing, there was also some other attractions such as a carnival style game to win sake flavor Kit Kats as well as sake pottery for sale.

This event was exciting for me because it showed the evolution of what a sake tasting can be. It does not have to be only a restaurant pairing dinner or a formal standing sake reception in a hotel ballroom. Making sake tasting fun, stylish and exciting is a great step towards creating new sake fans and growing our industry. And as for me, I’m already excited to see what the folks at Craft Sake Week will cook up for next year! Kanpai!

One of the perks of living in Niigata Japan has been the food… the glorious food! After 6 months here, almost every single meal I’ve had here outside my own home has been really, really good. Japan values high quality food and gets it right.

One of my favorite styles of food here is Japanese homestyle cooking. This way of cooking is rustic with limited ingredients and is usually very balanced and healthy. The best place I have found to enjoy Japanese homestyle cooking is the Hakkaisan Company Cafeteria. This building is called Minna no Shain Shokudo or “Employee Cafeteria for All”. This cafeteria is “for all” because it is open to employees and guests or visitors from outside the company, too. Anybody can stop by for lunch!

Employees can order breakfast, lunch or dinner any day. For visitors, the cafeteria is open to the public for lunch every day from 11am – 3pm.

Most often, you can find me at Minna no Shain Shokudo for lunch.

I sat down with Cafeteria Manager and Head Chef Mr. Sano to discuss the ins and outs of running a busy company cafeteria. Sano-san is tasked with a big challenge – for hungry brewers, he has to provide 3 meals a day, every day of the year (except New Years). During the brewing season, the sake mash does not take a rest, and neither do the brewers, so meals must be provided on weekends and holidays too. Every day sees as many 90 employees enjoy their breakfast, lunch or dinner at the cafeteria. Employees are served a simple buffet style meal that changes every day. Two constants every day are miso soup (with amazing in-house homemade miso) and delicious koshihikari rice (a prized local specialty). A word about Koshihikari rice – It is some of the best eating rice you’ll find anywhere and it grows all around this region. We are lucky to get to enjoy it every day with our meals. Please try it if you get the chance!

Guests visiting the Hakkaisan Company Cafeteria don’t eat the same lunch as the employees, but rather they enjoy a delicious set menu with a choice of meat or fish. This set for guests also includes the homemade miso soup and koshihikari rice. There are always a few seasonal sides along with salad and delicious homemade pickles, too. It is a fantastic home cooked lunch that draws people from far and wide. I see a lot of locals during the week and visitors from far and wide on the weekends. In the winter, I have also seen guests in their skiing gear grabbing lunch after a morning on the nearby slopes! If you visit us during lunchtime, you can enjoy lunch in the same room with the sake brewers! Please say hello!

So what’s on the menu for the brewers? Sample menus for employees include pork katsu with heaping sides of shredded cabbage and delicious salads on the side. Udon with homemade Tempura. Curry over rice with a side salad. And the employee’s favorite lunch? Sano-san tells me that is without a question karaage fried chicken tenderized with shiokoji, a salt and koji rice mixture. The karaage IS delicious but I’m team pork katsu when it comes to my favorite lunch.

You may be surprised to learn that there are some foods that are strictly off the menu at sake breweries. First is natto. For those who don’t know, natto is fermented soybeans with a slimey texture and strong smell that is much beloved by most Japanese. For sake brewers, eating this is forbidden as the microbes that ferment natto are powerful and could potentially interfere with the microbes of sake fermentation. Because of the strong odors, garlic is also avoided. Finally, Japanese mikan (kind of like a small orange) is also not allowed. The orange oil that is found in the mikan peel can get on your hands when peeling the mikan and it has antimicrobial properties which can inhibit fermentation.

Staying away from natto, garlic and mikan luckily leaves lots of leeway to have a great collection of dishes. If you are in Japan, a visit to the Hakkaisan Cafeteria is a wonderful way to spend a leisurely lunch – You’ll become a fan of Japanese homestyle cooking, too!