Touring Sake Breweries in Japan
F U S H I M I, Japan, March 9 -- We wound our way through the drafty atticof the brewery, toward the source of the aroma.
My wife, her mother and I had caught a whiff the moment wearrived at the Tamanohikari sake brewery a half-hour earlier: thefaintly sweet, floral scent of fermenting rice. We were nowfollowing that scent to pots the size of an office elevator thatheld the stewing rice.
I had picked Tamanohikari — which means "the brilliance of agem" — from dozens of breweries in Kyoto's Fushimi district as thefirst leg of our tasting tour only because I had tried one of itsvarieties of sake at a Tokyo restaurant months earlier.
It turned out to be a treat, especially for amateur sakeenthusiasts like us.
Most breweries here offer tours, including Gekkeikan, the367-year-old company that is the largest sake producer andexporter, as well as supplier to the imperial household since 1909.And because they are within easy walking distance of each other,it's an ideal place to delve into the country's sake-makinghistory.
A Storied History
Sake in Japan has been traced back to the third century, whenits forerunner, a fermented gruel, was brought from China. Sincethen, the country's national drink has been memorialized in historytexts and literature.
Despite the decline of sake consumption since the 1970s in theface of growing demand for beer, wine and distilled liquors, sakeremains the drink of choice for religious rituals, weddingceremonies and festivals.
Fushimi's heyday as a sake-producer came during the 17th centuryunder the rule of the shogun. Brewers were drawn to the area'sabundant spring water — from groundwater and melting mountainrun-off — as well as its proximity to river ports. Over time,Fushimi also became increasingly important as a key trading postwith the newly relocated capital to the east, Edo, which was laterknown as Tokyo.
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