Tokyofoodcast

What do sake bloggers talk about when they finally meet in person? At the unofficial 2008 Sake Bloggers Summit, only two things filled our entire day for oh…. about 15 hours, non-stop. Sake, of course, and Shizuoka.
When the Sake Samurai, Tim, said he was coming back to Japan for this year’s Sake Samurai ceremony, Robert-Gilles [...]

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Despite the unbearable heat, summer in Japan is the season for a lot of good stuff–including food. One thing I had wanted to do for sometime was to go to a small coastal city during the uni or sea urchin season and indulge myself. So, before going to Ichinoseki, I took a wide detour and [...]

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Musashino Shuzo’s annual shinshu or new sake tasting dinner the other day started with a really tough quiz. As the guests arrived, we were asked to sit down and try four honjozo bottles in a completely blind tasting. Our first task for the night was to pick SkiI Masamune out of the four. This sake [...]

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One weekend in February, I was with nineteen fellow sake nomi on a big bus to Niigata, about 5 hours away from Tokyo, for a two day trip filled with, well, …sake. I will write up what we were doing in Niigata later, but soba noodle making at Yukitaro-no-sato was scheduled for first thing in [...]

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These bottles are what I got at Chiyomusubi! Would Tim’s audience at Anime Festival in New York be all over these bottles or what? Medama Oyaji is my favorite character from GeGeGe no Kitaro ! This little eyeball always calls his son, “Oi, Kitaro” with high pitch voice.
Since Sakaiminato is the home town of Mizuki [...]

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This beautifully retro postcard came in the mail yesterday. As soon as I saw the smiling woman with an early Showa period air and the Chiyomusubi name next to her, my heart leapt, as if this was my first love letter. That is, if I could actually remember getting a first love letter! The note [...]

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In Tokyo you feel the changes in the seasons: endless rain becomes a sauna-like unbearably hot and humid day, then long awaited fall an with evening breeze. In Tamura-cho, Fukushima, home for our favorite sake Odayaka, you see the seasonal changes as wet green rice fields covered with newly planted sprouts transform to golden waves [...]

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I guess this is a bit like “he said” — “she said”. The previous post was from Te-chan’s take on our experience. This is mine. No, I am not talking about us! I’m talking about sake! And, you will get a chance to read Melinda’s version, too.

Just as expressed by one of their brand [...]

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Shizenshu–Nature’s sake

The Start
On a Saturday morning last month we went for a Shinkansen ride up to Koriyama and a day of sake making at Kinpou Shuzo–Niida Honke, makers of Odayaka (穏), Tamura, and Shizenshu. Melinda and JP came too, and had thoughtfully brought along a mediterranean selection of breakfast treats, so we all settled into [...]

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I always thought there’s something mysterious about sake making. Craftsmanship by Toji which is the master brewer’s magical touch, sleepless work in a steamy kojimuro to produce the best koji, kura people singing worksongs as they mix the mash of shubo with a big paddle in their hand: I thought these are essence to [...]

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