Oyama Funa-kake Shizuku-shibori Daiginjo brewed 2008/02

This week, we finally opened our Oyama Funa-kake Shizuku-shibori Daiginjo aged for one year. This very nice daiginjo brewed by Kahachiro Kato Shuzo in Yamagata taught me one very important lesson: Do not put too much faith in the takkyubin service.

Back in May, I received a startling call late one evening from someone I met through sake. She burst out, “You would not believe what happened!”

A while ago, she had said something about sending me a cho rea-mon, hard to find sake which was not available on the market. Well, I’ve never heard of this before, but to make a long story short, a takkyubin company smashed the package and broke the bottle during delivery. And, the precious one was definitely not replaceable. I sincerely thanked her for her sweet thoughts but said after a big sigh, “I can just imagine the taste that shizukuzake. How could the delivery guy drop such a precious package!”.

A bit over one month later out of the blue I received a call from an office of the shipping company. The guy on the other end of the line said he had not been able to find the exact same one, but found something close to the original sake. “Is it ok with you if we deliver the one we found?” the man asked me on the phone. “I don’t know. That was a gift from someone and I am not sure if she will approve of the replacement.” “She said it’s OK.” So, I agreed to receive the package.

I just could not believe this could happen! I always, always bragged about how wonderful takkyubin service is to visitors to Japan, by saying it is fast, dependable, safe, easy, and cheap. I still think Japanese overnight delivery services are excellent, but next time I send a very special sake, I will package the hell out of it.

Just as a reference for someone who is not familiar with the delivery services in Japan, takkyubin is a very common next day delivery service for sending anything from an envelop to big items like suitcase or even a bicycle. You can also ship perishables with a refrigerated service. The cost of for dependable overnight delivery is usually around 600 -1600 yen depending on the size and the distance.

Overnight delivery services:
Yamato Takkyubin
Sagawa
Yupack

About Kahachiro Kato Shuzo Co., Ltd. at JAL site in English: http://www.jal.com/fr/sake/intro/ohyama.html